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The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's

POEM TEXT Church 40 Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,
41 And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Rome, 15— 42 Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
43 Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
1 Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! 44 Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast...
2 Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? 45 Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
3 Nephews—sons mine...ah God, I know not! Well— 46 That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
4 She, men would have to be your mother once, 47 So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
5 Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! 48 Like God the Father's globe on both His hands
6 What's done is done, and she is dead beside, 49 Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,
7 Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, 50 For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!
8 And as she died so must we die ourselves, 51 Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:
9 And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream. 52 Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
10 Life, how and what is it? As here I lie 53 Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black—
11 In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, 54 'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
12 Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask 55 Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?
13 "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all. 56 The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
14 Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; 57 Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
15 And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought 58 Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
16 With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: 59 The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
17 —Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; 60 Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
18 Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner south 61 Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,
19 He graced his carrion with, God curse the same! 62 And Moses with the tables...but I know
20 Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence 63 Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
21 One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, 64 Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope
22 And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, 65 To revel down my villas while I gasp
23 And up into the aery dome where live 66 Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine
24 The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk: 67 Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!
25 And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, 68 Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then!
26 And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, 69 'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve
27 With those nine columns round me, two and two, 70 My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
28 The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands: 71 One block, pure green as a pistachio nut,
29 Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe 72 There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world—
30 As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. 73 And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray
31 —Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, 74 Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
32 Put me where I may look at him! True peach, 75 And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
33 Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize! 76 —That's if ye carve my epitaph aright,
34 Draw close: that conflagration of my church 77 Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,
35 —What then? So much was saved if aught were missed! 78 No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line—
36 My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig 79 Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!
37 The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, 80 And then how I shall lie through centuries,
38 Drop water gently till the surface sink, 81 And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
39 And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I! ... 82 And see God made and eaten all day long,

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83 And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste SUMMARY

84 Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
It's just as the preacher says: don't get attached to the
85 For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, pleasures of mortal life! Here, children, come closer to my
86 Dying in state and by such slow degrees, deathbed; hey, is Anselm dragging his feet back there?
87 I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, Nephews—I mean, my sons—oh, heck, I don't know what to call
88 And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, you now. Well, the lady who was once my lover was your
89 And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop mother, at any rate. My old rival Gandolf was so jealous of
90 Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work: me—that lady was so beautiful! But that's all in the past now,
91 And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts and besides, she's been dead for ages. I've become Bishop since
then. And I know that, just as she died, we all have to die one
92 Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
day—and that's how you know the world is nothing more than a
93 About the life before I lived this life,
brief dream. Ah, what is Life, anyway? As I lie here in this
94 And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests, elegant receiving room, slowly dying, spending hours awake in
95 Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount, the deepest part of the night, I ask myself, "Am I alive, or dead?"
96 Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes, Peace seems like the most important thing. And my church,
97 And new-found agate urns as fresh as day, Saint Praxed's, has always been a peaceful place.
98 And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet, So, anyway, let's talk about my tomb. I fought like crazy to lock
99 —Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend? down the particular alcove where my tomb will go, you know.
100 No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! Old Gandolf cheated me, despite my efforts to outwit him; he
101 Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. cleverly grabbed the best corner of the church, the place where
102 All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope his rotting carcass now rests, curse it! Still, though, my spot
isn't so narrow that you can't see the good side of the pulpit
103 My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
from it, and even get a glimpse of the empty choir loft, and the
104 Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,
high dome full of painted angels and shafts of sunlight. In this
105 They glitter like your mother's for my soul, alcove, I'll fill my dark stone tomb, and enjoy my eternal rest
106 Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze, beneath the tabernacle I once worshiped. Nine columns will
107 Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase stand around my coffin, two by two, except for the odd one out,
108 With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term, which will be right at my feet, where Anselm is standing now.
109 And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx Those pillars should be made of pink marble, as fine and rich as
110 That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, wine poured straight off of fresh grape mash. Be sure to put my
111 To comfort me on my entablature body right where I can look scornfully at old Gandolf in his
cheap, flaky marble tomb! My tomb will be a pure and perfect
112 Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
pink. I deserve it, after what I did!
113 "Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!
Come closer, boys: you remember when the church caught on
114 For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
fire? Well, we sure saved a lot of the holy relics from that
115 To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone—
disaster, even if a few were—nudge nudge, wink
116 Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat wink—mysteriously lost. Listen, sons, if you don't want to kill me
117 As if the corpse they keep were oozing through— prematurely, do what I say: go out to my vineyard and dig
118 And no more lapis to delight the world! around under where the olive oil press used to be. Wet the dirt
119 Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, until it sinks down. And beneath it, if you happened to
120 But in a row: and, going, turn your backs find—well, I don't know what you might find, but just maybe, if
121 —Ay, like departing altar-ministrants, you found a heap of old rotten fig leaves, and inside it an olive
122 And leave me in my church, the church for peace, basket bound up tightly in string, inside that you'd discover—oh,
123 That I may watch at leisure if he leers— lord—a huge lump of the blue stone lapis lazuli. A lump as big as
the head of John the Baptist—as blue as the breast-veins of the
124 Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone,
Virgin Mary in a painting.
125 As still he envied me, so fair she was!
Sons, I've left all my wealth to you—all my country houses,
everything, even the especially nice house in Frascati, the one
with the fancy bathtub. So, since you owe me, be sure to put
that lump of lapis between the knees of my effigy on my
tomb—just like the lapis globe that the statue of God the Father

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is holding in the Jesu Church, where I know you've been for meaning "he was illustrious" is in dreadful taste, it sounds more
services. I want old Gandolf to see that astonishing sight and like the workaday Latin of Ulpian!
absolutely explode with envy! My time on earth has been sinful and short. Make my tomb only
Our lives fly as quickly as a weaver's tools on the loom. People of the purest lapis, sons—nothing but lapis! Or I'll leave my
die, and where do they go then? Wait—did I say I wanted a country houses to the Pope instead! Are you all just waiting to
basalt tomb? No, I meant black marble, I always meant rich old break my heart? You've always had shifty little lizard eyes.
black marble! Otherwise, how will you make the decorative They're glittering lustfully, just like your mother's eyes used to
frieze stand out—the low-relief bronze sculpture you promised glitter, only you're hungry for my soul itself. Otherwise, you'd
to have made for me? The one with the Greek forest spirits, you liven up that shoddy bronze frieze you promised me, filling out
know, and maybe with an oracle's stool and Bacchus's staff, and its bare spots by adding some grapes, and a helmet, and a
some decorative urns, and Jesus delivering his famous Sermon statue of the god Terminus—and you'd make sure there was a
on the Mount, and St. Praxed herself shining with holy wildcat tied to the oracle's stool, trying to escape and knocking
light—and one goat-god getting ready to strip a forest spirit Bacchus's staff over in the process. Those additions would
naked, and Moses holding the Ten Commandments... but hey, make me feel better as I lie there on the cold stone, where I'll
you're not listening! have to lie forever, until again I ask: "Am I alive, or am I dead?"
Anselm, son born of my own body, what are they whispering to All right, go on, get out of here! You've cut me to the quick with
you? Oh, you all just want to go and party in my mansions while your thanklessness. You want me to die—dear God, you want
I helplessly gasp, my body entombed in cheap limestone, with me to die! You'll make my tomb of shoddy, crumbling
Gandolf's effigy laughing at me from on top of his tomb! No, sandstone—of damp blocks that bead up with moisture, as if
come on, sons, you all love me—so make my tomb of the rotting body inside were leaking out! You won't put a single
semiprecious jasper! It's jasper you're swearing to find now, to piece of glorious lapis on my tomb to bring the world beauty
keep me from mourning my beautiful jasper bathtub too much, when I'm gone! I said go on—get out of here. My blessings on
when—alas!—I have to leave it behind. Just find one block of you. Take away some of these candles, and line the rest up
jasper, pistachio-green—there's plenty of jasper somewhere or neatly. On your way out, turn your backs on me—creep out like
other. And if you do me this favor, I'll put in a good word with St. altar boys following a priest, and leave my body in my peaceful
Praxed for you, asking her to give you wonderful horses, and church. There, I can take all the time in the world to watch and
expensive ancient books, and lovers who look as plump and see if he's making faces at me—Old Gandolf, in his cheap tomb,
creamy as marble statues. That is, I'll do it if you choose a good still envying me for my lover—she was so beautiful!
tomb inscription for me. I want elegant Latin, carefully chosen,
from the great orator Cicero—not tasteless trash like the
second line of Gandolf's epitaph. Cicero's too good for him, THEMES
boys—he's content with Ulpian, a much worse writer!
Once I'm entombed so elegantly, I'll lie in the church for GREED, VANITY, AND MATERIALISM
hundreds of years, listening to Mass being performed, watching
The 16th-century Italian Bishop of “The Bishop
the rite of transubstantiation turn bread into God's flesh so
Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church” might be
that the congregation can eat it, feeling the warmth of
a powerful religious leader, but he’s far from a holy man. As he
candlelight and tasting rich, intoxicating incense smoke. Right
lies dying, all he can think about is building himself a palatial
now, as I lie here for hour after hour, all through the night, dying
tomb—and more to the point, one that will outshine that of his
bit by bit, I pose as if I were my own effigy: I cross my arms to
old rival Gandolf. His obsession with wealth and status doesn’t
hold a ceremonial staff, I stretch my feet out stiffly as stone, and
just make him a hypocrite, but a fool: worldly pleasures, the
I let my blankets fall like the cloth that covers a coffin, arranging
poem warns, last only as long as life does. And worse still,
them so they look as if they'd been carved by a sculptor. And as
materialistic selfishness can rob people of the ability to find real
the candles burn down, and I start to hear peculiar thoughts
meaning and connection.
buzzing in my mind—thoughts of where I was before I was a
bishop, and thoughts of my time as a bishop, among other While the dying Bishop is quick to repeat Christian proverbs
important holy men, thoughts of St. Praxed delivering his about the brevity of life and the “vanity” (or emptiness) of
famous Sermon on the Mount, and thoughts of you boys' worldly power, it’s clear that he doesn’t believe a word he says.
mother and her expressive eyes, and thoughts of ancient stone He’s spent his whole life obsessed with wealth, pleasure, and
vases dug up looking good as new. And I think of the language petty grievances; he can’t stop talking about how jealous his
that's fitting for marble monuments: elegant, tasteful Latin—ha, rival “Old Gandolf” was of his beautiful mistress or fretting that
does our old friend Gandolf's tomb read ELUCESCEBAT? Just he won’t get to enjoy his fabulous “villas” (country houses)
like I said, he's no Cicero: that particular phrasing of the words when he’s dead. He’s been so driven by a hunger for wealth and

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status that he’s even stolen treasures from his own church about losing everything he’s had in life. He has nothing but
during the chaos of a fire (a “conflagration” he might have lit scorn for his rival Gandolf’s tomb, which is carved from “onion-
himself). And now that he’s dying, he’s obsessed with building a stone,” a cheap, flaky kind of marble. His tomb, the bishop
fabulous tomb—not only for the sake of his own ego, but as an insists, will be made of lasting and lovely pink marble—or even
insult to Gandolf, whose tomb is only built of cheap, flaky of jasper or lapis, even richer and harder rocks. This obsession
“onion-stone.” with materials isn’t just about showing off his wealth and
But the wealth the Bishop worships is ultimately hollow. As he power, but about his fear of becoming “carrion” like Gandolf: if
lists all the elegant materials he wants his tomb built the stones of his tomb don’t decay, he seems to hope, neither
from—“marble,” “jasper,” and “bronze,” richly carved and will he.
ornamented—he seems to forget that, when his tomb is built, But the Bishop’s terrible visions toward the end of the poem
he’ll be dead, utterly unable to appreciate any of it. make it clear just how wrong he is. Imagining that his sons will
In a particularly ironic moment, he even tells his sons to go only build his coffin of “gritstone, a-crumble,” the Bishop paints
unearth a lump of precious “lapis lazuli” he’s buried in one of his an awful picture of cheap, brittle stone coffins beading up with
vineyards, an allusion to a Bible story in which Christ warns moisture “as if the corpse they keep were oozing through.” This
against hoarding “treasures upon earth” (since earthly image only reminds readers that the Bishop’s corpse will decay
treasures inevitably decay). No matter how much material whether it’s in a marble box or a sandstone one.
wealth the Bishop amasses, the poem reminds readers, it can’t Death and decay, the poem thus suggests, are facts that people
go beyond the grave with him. have to learn to live with; no amount of wealth or power can
What’s more, the Bishop’s utter self-centered materialism has save the Bishop (or anyone else) from their inevitable fate.
poisoned all of his relationships. He still feels bitter hatred for
his rival Gandolf, even though Gandolf is long dead. And he’s Where this theme appears in the poem:
certain that his boys—particularly “Anselm,” who’s looking a • Lines 8-13
little shifty—are just waiting for him to die so they can soak up • Lines 18-19
their vast inheritance (including all the money the Bishop has • Lines 25-26
earmarked for his tomb). He’s probably not wrong! But even • Lines 51-52
here, the Bishop’s fear doesn’t seem to be that his sons don’t • Lines 80-90
love him, but that they’ll put him in a cheap coffin of “gritstone, • Lines 113-118
a-crumble.” Wealth and status have become the only matters of
consequence to him—and to them.
Greed and egotism, the poem thus suggests, aren’t just empty, THE LASTING POWER OF ART
but corrosive; an ultimately fruitless obsession with worldly The Bishop of St. Praxed’s seems delusional when he
pleasure and power eats away at people’s sense of connection believes he’ll get to enjoy his own lavish tomb, given
and meaning. The Bishop’s materialistic egotism is its own that he’ll certainly be too dead to care whether it’s made of
punishment: with nothing beyond himself to care about, he dies “basalt” or “lapis.” But he’s not wrong to think that this tomb
loveless, angry, and afraid. could be a beautiful, enduring monument in its own right. His
elegant stone memorial might well exist for centuries—and, in
Where this theme appears in the poem: its loveliness, perhaps bring a great deal more happiness to the
world than the Bishop himself ever did. In this way, the poem
• Lines 1-125 speaks to the lasting power of art—something that the poem
implies can indeed develop a life well beyond its creator’s.
DEATH AND DECAY The Bishop wants his monument built of high-quality “marble”
or “jasper,” not just because they’re expensive and show off his
As he lays his plans for his elegant tomb, the Bishop
wealth, but also because such stones last and are beautiful. And
of St. Praxed’s is concerned not just with choosing
in asking that his sons decorate this elegant tomb with
the most ostentatious and expensive materials, but the
sculptures, he’s also remembering that art persists longer than
materials that will last. His obsession with sturdy “basalt” and
the people who create it. His tomb, if it gets built, might indeed
“marble”—and his terror that his sons will make his tomb of
be an artwork that “lives” for centuries longer than he does.
crumbling “gritstone” instead—is a cover for his deep fear of
death and decay. Through its images of preservation and rot, For that matter, the tomb he proposes might well add some
the poem reminds readers that death is inevitable and that all beauty to the world. His description of his tomb’s design, with
attempts to escape it are a foolish waste of time. its mixture of classical “Pans and Nymphs” and Christian
imagery
imagery, evokes real Renaissance sculptures, works admired to
The Bishop’s opinions about stone barely conceal his anxiety

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this day for their enduring power. And St. Praxed’s Church but his nephews and nieces. In fact, the word
itself, with its “aery dome” full of “sunbeam[s],” also sounds "nepotism," meaning "using one's influence and
genuinely lovely. Such art and architecture might often have power to favor family and friends," comes from the
been made by corrupt men for egotistical reasons, the poem Italian word for "nephew."
suggests, but it might also have the power to rise above the • In the Bishop's 16th-century world, such "nephews"
selfish intentions of the people who paid for it. In other words, were likely to go far in life, supported by a wealthy
art can bring joy to the world in spite of its creators. father with good reasons to keep them quiet and
content.
The poem thus suggests that art can transcend its
circumstances. Not only can art live longer than its creators,
In just these first few lines, then, the poem conjures a whole
but it can also be better than they were: the Bishop’s tomb
world of Renaissance corruption, wealth, and power. This
might genuinely “delight the world,” even if the Bishop himself Bishop knows how to talk the Christian talk—but also how to
didn’t do a single good work in his life. take full, selfish advantage of his important church position.
Lying on his deathbed, he seems to have no regrets and no
Where this theme appears in the poem: shame: he knowingly refers to his sons' beautiful "mother," and
• Lines 21-24 gloats over just how jealous his old rival "Gandolf" (another
• Lines 27-30 priest—no relation to Tolkien
olkien's
's wizard
wizard) was of this "fair" lady. In
• Lines 42-44 short, he's spent his whole life as a corrupt, spiteful, selfish man,
• Lines 53-62 and he sees no reason to amend his ways now that he's dying.
• Lines 68-72 There are hints, though, that this life has taken its toll on him.
• Lines 87-90 As he gathers his sons, he seems nervous that "Anselm" is
• Lines 107-110 "keeping back"—in other words, lurking in the background,
• Lines 118-118 reluctant to come forward, perhaps resentful or scheming. The
Bishop's anxiety about this suggests that his selfish life has
made him suspicious, always on the watch for backstabbers.
LINE-BY
LINE-BY-LINE
-LINE ANAL
ANALYSIS
YSIS (Keep an eye out for Anselm as the poem goes on; the Bishop
certainly will.)
LINES 1-5 This poem is a dramatic monologue, which means that it's
Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! spoken in the first person by a particular character. The poet
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? takes on a voice like an actor playing a part. For this particular
Nephews—sons mine...ah God, I know not! Well— monologue, Browning has chosen a theatrical form, too: blank
She, men would have to be your mother once, verse
erse. That means the poem is written in lines of unrhymed
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! iambic pentameter—lines of five iambs, metrical feet with a
The first line of "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's da-DUM
DUM rhythm, like this:
Church" sounds like a sermon: "Vanity, saith the preacher,
vanity!" the speaker cries, alluding to biblical wisdom about the Draw round | my bed
bed: | is An
An- | selm keep
eep- | ing back
back?
ultimate emptiness of worldly wealth and power. Everything
that the speaker says thereafter will ironically undercut that If this rhythm sounds familiar, that's not surprising: this is the
first cry—and unintentionally prove its wisdom. same form Shak
Shakespeare
espeare used for most of the dialogue in his
plays. Browning invites his readers to imagine the Bishop's
As the poem begins, its speaker, a 16th-century Italian
speech not just as a poem, but as a performance. Like King
Renaissance bishop, is lying on his deathbed, calling his sons
Lear's or Leontes's speeches, the Bishop's words reveal a lot
around him to listen to his last wishes. Right from the start,
more about him than he might realize.
then, readers know that the Bishop has perhaps not been
100% faithful to his calling: Catholic priests are meant to be LINES 6-9
celibate, and this man has not just one son, but a whole gaggle
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
of them!
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
Of course, he's certainly not the only priest in his world to have And as she died so must we die ourselves,
strayed. When he starts out by calling his sons "nephews," he And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.
follows an old tradition:
The Bishop of St. Praxed's has just finished a fond reminiscence
not just about his beautiful mistress, but also about how
• When a supposedly celibate priest had children, the
envious she made his bitter rival Gandolf. It seems as if he takes
kids were referred to not as his sons and daughters,

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as much pleasure in the thought of Gandolf's envy as he does in But he has plenty of time to consider it now. Listen to the
his mistress's loveliness. And he certainly doesn't make any polyptoton in this picture of his current circumstances:
allowance for the fact that the woman he's describing to his
many sons is their mother; he talks about her to them as if she [...] As here I lie
were a luxurious ornament, a status symbol whose worth the In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
boys might appreciate just as much as he does. Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
Just as swiftly as he brought this woman up, the Bishop now "Do I live, am I dead
dead?" [...]
tidies her memory away, as if he's dusting his hands off. Listen
to his alliter
alliterativ
ativee repetitions here: Returning and returning to words related to death—and using
death both literally and metaphorically (i.e., "dead night")—he
What's done is done
done, and she is dead beside, seems to be trying to fathom the idea that, yes, he's really
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, dying, it's really over. But he's also feeling sorry for himself: this
image of lying for endless sleepless hours wondering whether
All those /d/ sounds land with matter-of-fact thumps, like he might be dead already is a harrowing one. Wondering "Do I
bodies hitting the ground. What really matters to the Bishop is live, am I dead?", the Bishop seems to be confronting his own
that, since this lady died, he has made his way up the ranks of emptiness. Without constant pleasure and activity to distract
the priesthood to the position of wealth and power he now him, he discovers that his inner life is "dead" already.
enjoys. Note, too, that the Bishop is lying in a "state-chamber"—that is,
But he won't get to enjoy it for long. Take a look at the way he a sumptuous receiving room, meant to impress guests. Even his
turns the conversation back to death: deathbed is spiced with egotism.
After this grim picture of a man confronting his emptiness in a
And as she died so must we die ourselves, beautiful, soulless room every night, it's no wonder that the
And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream. Bishop should conclude: "P Peace
eace, peace seems all." There's
something ironic about his epizeuxis there: his nervous
The words the Bishop uses here are well-worn: some scrabbling for "peace" only suggests just how troubled and
preacherly language about how we all "must die ourselves," a anxious he really is.
clichéd old metaphor about life as nothing more than a fleeting Luckily for him, his own home church, "St. Praxed's," is a
dream. By resorting to cliché here, the Bishop seems to be peaceful place: it "ever was the church for peace," he says. (St.
trying to hold the reality of death at a bit of a distance. If he can Praxed, the church's patron saint, was a Roman martyr famed
just repeat some familiar words about mortality, he can keep for her generosity—another irony, considering the Bishop's
himself in a position of power: he casts himself as the greed and selfishness.)
impressive Bishop lecturing his obedient sons, rather than a
And thinking of St. Praxed's Church helps the Bishop to swing
man lying helpless on his deathbed.
the conversation around to the place he wanted it to go all
LINES 10-15 along: "And so, about this tomb of mine," he concludes. He
hasn't summoned his sons to say farewell to them, or even to
Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
get their pity; he just wants to make sure that they build his
In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
tomb exactly the way he wants it.
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
"Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all. LINES 15-19
Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;
I fought
And so, about this tomb of mine.
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
For all that the Bishop wants to cling to his power and his past —Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
victories, he's not above a little self-pity over his current sickly Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner south
state. In these lines, he takes a moment to glance at the facts of He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
his situation—only to look away again, as quickly as he can.
As the Bishop begins to describe his plans for his tomb, it
"Life, how and what is it?" he begins—a rather pompous, vague doesn't take long for thoughts of battle to supplant his longing
rhetorical question
question. His tone here suggests that, for all that he's for calm: the word "peace" ends line 14, and the word "fought"
meant to have spent his career contemplating matters of the ends line 15. In St. Praxed's church, it turns out, even choosing a
soul, he's really been too occupied with lusting after ladies and final resting place means a petty power struggle.
spiting "Old Gandolf" to think too hard about what his life's
The Bishop remembers that he had to fight "with tooth and
purpose might actually have been.
nail" to reserve the "niche" he desires (the alcove where his

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tomb will be built). And even getting that niche was cold silences. The Bishop, readers might observe, probably isn't
comfort: his old rival Gandolf "cozened" (or tricked) him out of wrong to think his church a genuinely beautiful place.
the absolute best spot in the church, the area in "the corner But the odd thing is, he seems to believe he'll still be able to see
south" where Gandolf's "carrion"—a not-at-all friendly way of all these beauties after he's dead. It's already clear that this
describing his dead body—now rests. Bishop is not the most devout man on earth: a "celibate" father,
Readers might be surprised to learn that the "Gandolf" the a wealthy and powerful Christian, he's not a person who
Bishop can't stop spitefully referring to has been dead all along. practices what he preaches. Here, it also seems he doesn't have
But the Bishop doesn't seem to be a man who'll let death get in much sense of a Christian afterlife. Imagining death, he pictures
the way of some good fiery resentment. Listen to the sounds of neither heaven nor oblivion, but something in between: the
his bitter muttering here: grave, to him, is only a sort of eternal hammock, in which he can
kick back and enjoy the view.
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner south All the Bishop really has to believe in, these lines suggest, are
He gracced his carrion with, God cursse the same! the very earthly pleasures he hypocritically decried in the first
line of the poem. It's easy enough for him to declare that "all is
The harsh /c/ and grating /g/ alliter
alliteration
ation, complemented by vanity"—but when it comes down to matters of life and death,
hissing sibilance
sibilance, makes it sound as if the Bishop is practically the vain, empty pleasures of good seats in the church seem to
spitting with hatred at the mere thought of Gandolf and his be all he can focus on.
plush niche. The two men's jockeying for the good spot, it
A moment of odd personification in these lines char
characterizes
acterizes
seems, was as petty and spiteful as any real-estate lawsuit.
the man, too. When he thinks of the "aery dome" where "a
These lines suggest that it isn't just that the Bishop and Gandolf sunbeam's sure to lurk," he presents a shaft of sunlight as a
were two bad men in holy positions, but that their rivalry has furtive presence, less an angelic illumination than a skulking
tainted the very church they supposedly protect, making St. fugitive to capture. Even sunlight, in the Bishop's view, is just
Praxed's very structure a mere monument to their egotism. something to be snatched.
What will survive of them is hatred.
LINES 25-30
LINES 20-24
And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,
One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, With those nine columns round me, two and two,
And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:
And up into the aery dome where live Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk: As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.
Thinking of how Gandolf snatched the good niche out from Having painted a pretty picture of the view from his chosen
under him has made the Bishop bitterly angry. Now, he tries to alcove, the Bishop starts getting down to the brass tacks of how
mollify himself with thoughts of all the virtues his own resting his monument itself will look. These lines introduce his
place will boast. Again, it sounds more as if he's describing a obsession with the exact materials and design of his tomb.
summer home than an alcove for a dead body to lie in.
He's got some highly specific ideas about his final resting place.
He brags of the good view of: He wants, to start with, a "slab of basalt," a smooth black stone,
for his sarcophagus. Around this should stand "nine columns"
• "the pulpit o' the epistle-side"—that is, the side of the of mottled, pinky-red "peach-blossom
peach-blossom marble
marble."
preacher's podium nearest to the right of the altar,
the place from which New Testament readings are It sounds less like he's designing a tomb and more like he's
delivered during the Mass; drawing up plans for a palace—or, for that matter, like he's
• the "choir," a loft where singers gather to writing the menu for a banquet. Listen to his simile here:
perform—though in his imagination, their "seats" are
"silent"; Peach-blossom marble all, the rrare,
are, the ripe
• and perhaps most memorably, the "aery dome" As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse
pulse.
where the "angels" live, an image that might suggest
both a fanciful spiritual vision and a ceiling In other words, the Bishop wants his columns made of a marble
decor
decorated
ated with paintings or mosaics
mosaics. whose color looks good enough to feast on: it's peachy-pink,
but also the clear red of new wine, just poured off its "pulse,"
The imagery here paints a picture of a richly-decorated Italian the grape mash it's been squeezed from. The very thought of
Renaissance church, all frescoes and gilding and chanting and these rich stones, in short, seems to make the Bishop salivate

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with greed. church to this very day will see tombs that look just like the
The idea of "wine" coming from a "pulse" (which could suggest a visions the Bishop describes: monuments made of all sorts of
heartbeat) might also ironically allude to the Catholic idea of rich marbles and decorated with sculptures (some of them very
transubstantiation. In the Mass the Bishop has spent his life famous indeed
indeed). If the Bishop wants to cement his legacy, art
halfheartedly performing, wine is said to transform into the made of stone is a pretty good way to go about it; both art and
literal blood of Christ. If this Bishop has ever given the meaning stones tend to considerably outlast the people who pay for
of this idea more than a passing thought, it's certainly not them.
where his mind is now. He's more interested in gobbling up And the Bishop feels he's done more than enough to "earn[] the
wealth than in making sacred sacrifices. prize" of a sumptuous tomb. Now, on his deathbed, he seems
But all this richness and beauty is, so far, just a feverish dream. ready to tell his sons a lot more about how he earned the money
As the Bishop points out where his wine-and-peach pillars for such a prize. Listen to what he doesn't say here:
should stand in relation to his sarcophagus, he notes that his
son "Anselm" is standing right where the ninth and final column Draw close: that conflagration of my church
should go, at his feet. The Bishop is deep in visions of a splendid —What then? So much was saved if aught were
and lasting tomb, but right now, he's just a frail body in a bed, missed!
demanding that his sons obey his last orders—with no
assurance that they will. Seemingly out of nowhere, the Bishop recalls a time St.
Praxed's caught on fire—and carefully recalls that they
This image also reminds readers that it was "Anselm" who was
managed to save a great many of the church's holy treasures,
looking a little shifty in the poem's earliest lines, when the
even if one or two might have gone, ahem ahem, mysteriously
Bishop beckoned him closer, wondering why he was "keeping
missing.
back." The Bishop has every reason to worry that his sons might
not want to follow his designs. By all appearances, he hasn't The Renaissance Catholic Church was an extremely wealthy
been the kind of loving father whose wishes the boys will jump and powerful institution; the Bishop would have earned a
to follow. And all this "basalt" and "peach-blossom marble" handsome salary to start with. But apparently, that wasn't
doesn't come cheap; the Bishop's tomb designs will take a bite enough for him. He's saved up for his tomb, not simply by
out of these young fellows' inheritance. These lines paint a earmarking part of his vast wealth for it, but by making off with
picture of the sons, Anselm in particular, clustered around the treasures from his own church under cover of a disaster. He's
Bishop's bed, more like vultures than grieving children. not merely selfish and greedy, but outright amoral.

LINES 31-35 LINES 36-41

—Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig
Put me where I may look at him! True peach, The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,
Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize! Drop water gently till the surface sink,
Draw close: that conflagration of my church And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I! ...
—What then? So much was saved if aught were missed! Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,
And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Naturally, the Bishop doesn't just want "peach-blossom marble"
for the columns of his tomb because he thinks it's pretty. He Having hinted that he might have spirited away a prize or two
wants it because it's just another way to cement his power and from his own church during a fire, the Bishop now prepares to
status—and a way to insult "Old Gandolf," whose tomb is only send his sons on a treasure hunt to dig up one of those very
made of "onion-stone," a cheap kind of marble that peels off in prizes. The map he lays out for them underlines his rapacious
sheets. (And note, again, that the Bishop's language casts greed.
stones as food: Gandolf's everyday "onion" is nothing to the The Bishop opens with a wary question: "My sons, ye would not
Bishop's imagined feast of wine and peaches.) be my death?" There's a double meaning there. On the surface,
"Put me where I may look at him!" the Bishop crows, again he's saying, "Listen, boys, if you don't want me to keel over right
imagining that he'll be able to luxuriate in his fancy tomb and now from frustration, do what I say." But there's also a
soak up Gandolf's envy. It still seems that the Bishop has no real subconscious hint here that he's worried his sons might be
conception of what death means—or, at the very least, he really eager for him to die sooner rather than later. Remember,
doesn't want to face the fact that by the time he's in his tomb, Anselm was looking shifty not too long ago.
both he and Gandolf will be well past caring what it's made of. But the frail Bishop has no choice but to entrust his sons with
But the poem's imagery of lovely stones does quietly make a his plans; it's not as if he can get up and see to his business
different point. Anyone who visits an Italian Renaissance himself. So he begins to tell the boys where to go digging in his

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"white-grape vineyard" for a treasure he buried there long ago, lapis lazuli isn't just a lovely and pricey rock, but a useful one.
under the spot where the "oil-press" used to be (which In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, lapis was particularly
suggests he once grew olives in his vineyard, too). prized for creating a rich blue pigment, a color so rare and
The specificity of "white-gr
white-grape
ape vineyard" suggests that this is expensive it was often reserved for painting the Virgin Mary's
only one of the Bishop's many vineyards. And his exactitude veil
eil. And the similes the speaker uses here explicitly connect
about the treasure's location makes it clear that he has an the stone to art:
indelible mental map of every single place he's squirreled
something valuable away. His vast wealth, far from giving him Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
comfort and security, seems only to make him more anxious Blue as a vvein
ein o'er the Madonna's breast...
and grasping.
Listen to how his imagery here shows just how careful he is Both of these images might seem as if they're mostly about
with this treasure: bodies (as well as being antisemitic, in the first instance—a
sadly in-character attitude for a Renaissance bishop). But these
Bedded in store of rotten fig-lea
fig-leavves soft, particular lines also allude to ways that the body was
And corded up in a tight oliv
olive-fr
e-frail,
ail, represented in Renaissance painting:

If his sons are to unearth the treasure, he won't have them • The severed head here calls up images of John the
hacking away at the ground with a shovel: they'll have to Baptist, whose beheading was a common artistic
"gently" drip water on the earth to soften it. When they do dig, theme
theme.
• And that scandalous-sounding "vein o'er the
they'll find that the treasure has been laid in a "soft" bed of fig
Madonna's breast" in fact refers to devotional
leaves, tied up tight in a protective olive basket. The Bishop has
paintings of the Virgin Mary nursing the infant
buried this inanimate object with funereal care, as if he were
Jesus—an even more popular subject
subject.
laying a baby to rest.
But he's also careful in a different way: his cry of "Ah God, I One of the most distinctive features of Renaissance painting
know not, I!" is his disclaimer. He's essentially saying, "I mean, I was the way it represented biblical figures as real, three-
don't know WHAT you might find, but just maybe you'd dimensional people. Over the course of a few hundred years,
discover this bundle..." He's well aware that he's not supposed the figures in Christian religious paintings went from remote
to have done what he's done. and stylized to lifelik
lifelikee and flesh
fleshyy. This change mirrored a
The image of the Bishop painstakingly bundling up a treasure to cultural shift toward humanism, a rationalist worldview that
bury it in one of his vineyards is particularly ironic because it prized human ingenuity and goodness, and that moved away
echoes a famous Christian parable. In the Book of Matthew, from an exclusively religious value system.
Christ warns his followers not to store their "treasures upon But humanity isn't perfect, and the religious paintings the
earth," because all earthly things inevitably decay. Instead, Bishop evokes here wouldn't have been pure expressions of
people should reach for the treasures of heaven. "For where devotion either to Christian or to humanist values. They would
your treasure is," the story concludes, "there will your heart be also have been yet another way of showing off. People who
also." The Bishop's heart, this allusion suggests, is firmly in the commissioned lovely paintings of the nursing Madonna for
mud. their homes or their churches were also demonstrating their
good taste and wealth.
LINES 42-44
The Bishop's prized lump of lapis, and the images he uses to
Some lump, ah God, of
describe it, thus sum up a whole world of Renaissance
lapis lazuli,
contradictions. The Bishop is truly a man of his time: a person
Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
whose religiosity (such as it is) is all tangled up with worldly
Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast...
concerns.
At last, with a longing groan, the Bishop reveals what his sons
And it's worth noting that the similes he chooses are fleshy, too.
might expect to find buried in the dirt of his vineyard: "Some
A severed head, a blue vein in a breast: there's plenty of sex and
lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli." In other words: a great big chunk of
death in these pictures. These images remind readers yet again
deep-blue stone
stone.
that all the Bishop's metaphorical "treasure" is the kind that
This particular treasure is meaningful in more ways than one. eventually rots in the ground; everything he loves is a passing
Readers have already noted the Bishop's obsession with the worldly pleasure.
permanence and beauty of stones; he salivates over "peach-
But by having his Bishop evoke Renaissance art, Browning also
blossom marble" as if it were the world's richest dessert. But
makes this poem's philosophy a little more complicated. The

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Bishop might value lapis and art for purely egotistical reasons. These lines begin to suggest that the Bishop sees the tomb not
But he's not wrong to think that these things might make a as a container for his corpse, but as a whole new body.
good and lasting monument: the beauty and power of Describing his effigy, he says he wants the lump of lapis to
Renaissance art endures to this day. Perhaps, the poem hints, "poise between my knees"—and he definitely means the knees
art produced by bad people for selfish purposes can be both of his statue, not his carcass. Once more, he seems to think he
longer-lived and better than the people who paid for it. can buy his way out of death.

LINES 45-50 LINES 51-55

Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:
That brave Frascati villa with its bath, Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black—
Like God the Father's globe on both His hands 'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay, Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?
For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst! A moment ago, the Bishop was deep in delicious
Snapping out of his reverie about the sheer size and blueness of schadenfreude
schadenfreude, imagining Gandolf's envy over his lapis tomb
the "lump" of lapis he's buried in his vineyard, the Bishop gets ornaments. Now, he seems to realize that this gloating might
back down to business. He reminds his sons that he's left his have carried him a little too far from his religious persona—so
entire vast fortune to them and that they, therefore, owe him. he puts on his holy-man voice to deliver a couple of empty
Guilt-trip firmly in place, he demands that they use the aphorisms
aphorisms:
unearthed lapis to make his effigy (the statue of him that will
decorate his tomb) even more spectacular. The statue of him Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:
should be holding the lapis "between [its] knees," so he can still Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
clutch his treasure beyond the grave.
These lines, like the images of Renaissance painting that the There's something ironic about the way the Bishop trots out
Bishop's similes conjured up in lines 43-44, do as much to set these old clichés about life's brevity:
the scene around the Bishop as they do to char
characterize
acterize the man
himself. When he reminds his sons that he's left them • On the one hand, he's clearly just saying what a holy
everything, even the villa (or country house) in "Frascati," he man would be expected to say, without believing a
alludes to a resort town popular with the Renaissance Roman jot of it. The simple fact that he uses well-worn turns
elite. And when he distinguishes that villa by its "bath," he of phrase here suggests he's speaking automatically,
not from the heart.
suggests that a built-in tub is a luxurious novelty—very 16th-
• On the other hand, everything he's saying is true.
century indeed.
His life has gone by fast and is almost over, no one
But most specific is his reference to a statue of "God the knows what happens after death—and these are
Father" in "the Jesu Church," which he wants his own effigy to precisely the facts he's unwilling to confront.
emulate. The Jesu Church is a real place
place, and one that would
have been new-built and at the height of fashion in the Bishop's The Bishop then underscores his insincerity and fear by
time. swinging right back around to what he's really interested in: his
It also indeed contains an altar featuring a massive lump of fancy tomb. Now, he revises his original requests. "Basalt" is no
lapis. That altar, however, was built much later on in the 17th longer good enough for the "slab" his effigy will rest on, he
century and doesn't depict "God the Father" holding the stone, decides; he wants "antique-black" marble or nothing. Perhaps
as the Bishop describes it here. But Browning's poetic license readers will not be surprised to learn that this revision will also
with dates and architecture helps him to depict the depths of mean more expense. Pure black marble is a lot pricier than
the Bishop's egotism. The Bishop wants, not just to clutch his relatively humble basalt.
lapis, but also to be posed as if he holds the whole world in his The juxtaposition of the Bishop's clichés and his sudden desire
hands; richer than God, as the saying goes. for an even fancier tomb suggests he's much more disturbed by
And again, a big part of the pleasure in this design is the idea it'll the thought of death than he's willing to admit. Merely brushing
be a poke in the eye for old Gandolf. This enthroned effigy with past the idea of annihilation sends him scrambling back to
a lump of precious stone in its lap will make his old rival "burst" thoughts of wealth and status. If my tomb is rich enough, he
with envy, the Bishop crows, once more forgetting that Gandolf seems to be thinking, maybe I won't have to give my treasures up.
can't see anything—and that his own corpse won't be seeing But he's also got stylistic reasons for wanting a slab of "antique-
much, either. black." Only that dark color, he thinks, will show off his elegant

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bronze "frieze," a decorative band of sculpture that he's about • But he doesn't even finish a whole line discussing
to describe in detail. the image of the saint. Instead, he swerves right
back to a spicy picture of a goat-god about to strip a
LINES 56-62 Nymph naked.
The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, • Finally, to complete this heady brew, he throws in
Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Moses holding the stone tablets upon which the Ten
Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, Commandments were written.
The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan This list spells out his priorities plainly. All the Christian figures
Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, the Bishop wants on his tomb are pretty rote images: he just
And Moses with the tables... names them and leaves his sons to figure out the details with
the sculptor. But when it comes to his "Pans and Nymphs," he
The Bishop doesn't just want his tomb decorated with lovely
knows exactly how he wants them to look and what he wants
stones. He also wants it adorned with bronze sculpture, all in
them to be doing, in lascivious detail.
the most tasteful fashion of his day.
This isn't just the Bishop being an old lecher. It's a moment of
He wants a "bas-relief," a kind of sculpture in which the figures
commentary on the way that Renaissance art really did mingle
stick slightly out of the background, as in the sculptor
the sublime and the profane. Not every Victorian critic
Ghiberti's famous "Gates
Gates of P
Par
aradise
adise" in Florence. And the
approved this part of Renaissance style, but this poem clearly
figures that relief depicts should run the gamut from "Nymphs
finds the humor in the idea of sexy nymphs cavorting alongside
and Pans"—classical forest spirits and goat gods—to the holy
Moses himself.
"Saint Praxed in a glory," surrounded by a halo of light.
Again, the poem reminds readers that plenty of art just like this
Here, the poem reminds readers that the Bishop is a literal
still graces churches and museums to this day and that it can
Renaissance man. Classical mythology was in vogue during the
give real pleasure. The Bishop might be a dirty-minded old man,
period, and it wasn't too strange for images of pagan gods and
but he's also trying to commission a piece of art that might well
Christian saints to hang next to each other on wealthy walls, or
last for centuries. Without meaning to, he might do some actual
even tr
transform
ansform into each other
other. But the fact that the Bishop
good in the world.
leads with classical allusions suggests his mind is more on the
wild debauchery of a bacchanal (a frenzied party in honor of the That is, his tomb might do some good in the world—if his sons
wine god Bacchus) than the pious scenes one might expect actually obey his orders and build the thing.
from a clergyman.
LINES 62-67
Take a look at how his par
parallelism
allelism here draws attention to his
but I know
priorities:
Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope
Those PPans
ans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
To revel down my villas while I gasp
Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine
The Sa
Saviour
viour at his sermon on the mount,
Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!
Saint Pr
Prax
axed
ed in a glory, and one P
Pan
an
Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, The Bishop has been busy making a long, faintly pornographic
And Moses with the tables [...] list of all the images he wants in his tomb sculptures. But now
interrupts himself, noticing that his sons aren't paying him the
This is, essentially, a shopping list of images—and one whose reverent attention he feels he deserves. In fact, they look as if
order and focus are pretty revealing. Here's what the Bishop they're scheming amongst themselves.
wants: It's that shifty Anselm again, the Bishop suspects, up to no
good. Begging Anselm to know what the others are whispering
• He starts with the classical: the aforementioned to him, the Bishop evokes their blood ties, calling Anselm the
forest spirits; an oracle's ceremonial "tripod" stool; "child of my bowels"—that is, his own flesh and blood.
Bacchus's pinecone-tipped staff, the "thyrsus"; and a But it doesn't seem like this relationship means much to
jumble of Grecian urns
urns.
Anselm. Or at least, the Bishop gets no impression that it does.
• Then, he remembers to throw some Christian
This passage at once suggests that the Bishop is anxious and
figures in there: first, the famous "sermon on the
paranoid—and that he has every reason to be. There seems to
mount," a speech Christ delivers in the biblical
be no love lost between him and his sons. Remember, back at
Gospels; then, his church's patron Saint Praxed in a
"glory," a sacred halo. the beginning of the poem, he had to impatiently urge his sons
to "draw round"; they don't appear to feel especially sorrowful

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here beside their father's deathbed. same material will comfort him for the fact that his "bath must
Here's how the Bishop expresses his paranoia: needs be left behind, alas!"
Just like the transition from "basalt" to "antique-black" marble,
[...] Ah, ye hope this new demand is an escalation both in splendor and in cost.
To revel down my villas while I gasp Scrambling toward more and more pomp, beauty, and expense
Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine seems to be the Bishop's way of putting distance between
Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! himself and thoughts of death and loss—thoughts that have
now sunk in just far enough that he knows his bath "must needs
In other words, the Bishop fears that his sons plan to build him be left behind," that at least some of his wealth can't join him
a cheap tomb, then spend the rest of the marble-and-sculpture beyond the grave.
fund partying at the many luxurious country houses the Bishop Describing the jasper he longs for, he returns to a familiar
is leaving them in his will. Readers might note that a lot of this flavor of simile
simile:
paranoia seems to stem from the Bishop's own personality:
these lines sound like a description of what he'd do if he were in One block, pure green as a pistachio nut
nut,
their place. His selfishness might have made him hugely
wealthy, but it also has psychological consequences; he has no Once more, the Bishop imagines stone as a delicacy. This
trust and no love in his life. metaphor has become so insistent that it's worth thinking
And once again, the Bishop seems to take a pretty delusional about what food might mean to him:
view of death:
• Besides suggesting a connoisseur's taste for the
• He doesn't just fear that the boys will build his tomb finer things in life, all this food imagery might
from "beggar's mouldy travertine," a cheap stone. suggest that the Bishop wants to merge with his
(And notice, again, the food-related language tomb somehow.
here—the only thing worse than peeling "onion" is • Again, there could be an allusion to the Catholic idea
inedible "mould"!) of transubstantiation here, in which bread becomes
• Worse, he imagines being "bricked o'er" in that the body of Christ so that the congregation can
tomb, still "gasp[ing]," as if he's been buried alive. literally absorb God into their own bodies. Eating, in
this practice, becomes "communion," a process that
Naturally, the deepest horror of this vision lies in the thought brings different beings together as one.
that Gandolf will laugh at him "from his tomb-top." Here, again,
stone and bodies seem to switch places: the figure the Bishop Readers have already seen that the Bishop half-believes that
imagines laughing at him isn't Gandolf's "carrion," but his stone sculptures are the people they represent—that Gandolf's effigy
effigy. on his "tomb-top" can laugh at him, or that putting a lump of
lapis between his own effigy's knees will mean that he himself is
LINES 68-72 clutching it. His apparent "hunger" for stones might be a way of
Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then! fantasizing about eternal life: if he can eat the stones of his
'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve tomb, perhaps his own body can somehow take on their
My bath must needs be left behind, alas! permanence and beauty.
One block, pure green as a pistachio nut, This ironically materialistic "communion" won't work, of course.
There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world— And perhaps the Bishop is beginning to get that sense. His
His vision of a future in which he lies "bricked o'er with beggar's insistent repetition of the word "jasper" in these lines,
mouldy travertine" seems to have spooked the Bishop. In these especially in his pleading insistence that "there's plenty jasper
lines, his tone changes from imperious to wheedling. "Nay, boys, somewhere in the world," is starting to sound desperate.
ye love me," he says—in other words, "No, boys, you wouldn't do
that to me, you love me!" He's trying to persuade himself as
LINES 73-75
much as anyone. If his sons love him, his inner argument goes, And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray
they won't make his tomb out of cheap, damp limestone. Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
Instead, he goes on, they'll agree—in fact, they'll swear—to make
his tomb entirely from jasper
jasper, a richly-colored semiprecious The Bishop is starting to feel anxious that his sons won't do
gemstone. Perhaps the Bishop gets the idea from the fabulous what he wishes. Even as he escalates the grandeur of his tomb's
"bath" in his "Frascati villa," which seems to have been made of materials from "basalt" to "antique-black" marble to
jasper too: here, he hopes that having a tomb made from the semiprecious "jasper," his tone gets less powerful, more and

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more wheedling and anxious. clearer.
In these lines, he resorts to bribery to get his way. His sons It turns out that it isn't enough for one's tomb to bear a Latin
should remember, he says, that St. Praxed, the patron of his inscription. There are also different grades of Latin, just as there
church, will be his special friend after he's dead, only too happy are different grades of stone. The Bishop makes this point
to do favors for him. If the boys follow his tomb design to the concrete in a metaphor
metaphor, calling the Latin on Gandolf's tomb
letter, he'll put in a good word for them with the saint, and she'll "gaudy ware"—tacky, cheap, substandard goods, just like the
make sure they get all the "horses," expensive "Greek "onion-stone" his effigy is carved from.
manuscripts," and sexy "mistresses" they can handle. Indeed, Gandolf's epitaph might as well have been written by
This vision casts a saint as nothing more than an influential "Ulpian," the Bishop sneers, alluding to a minor Latin writer. But
higher-up, just one more politician in a holy kleptocr
kleptocracy
acy. The "Ulpian serves his need"—that is, Ulpian is good enough for a
Bishop's you-scratch-my-back, I'll-scratch-yours attitude fool like Gandolf, who doesn't know any better.
toward the divine likely reflects exactly how he operated in the For the Bishop himself, though, only the elegant Latin of
Church. The sacred, to him, has always been a mere path to "Tully"—that is, the great Roman orator Marcus Tullius
material gain. Cicero—will do. Even the Bishop's casual use of the name
And take another look at the pleasures he dances in front of his "Tully" suggests that he sees himself as a great scholar, on
sons' eyes like lollipops: familiar terms with Cicero himself.
In short, there's not one single thing the Bishop can't be a snob
Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts
manuscripts, about. He's not wrong, here; he is indeed well-read, and most
And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs [...] would agree that Cicero has the better turn of phrase than
Ulpian. But he can only view his learning through the prism of
In Renaissance terms, offering "horses" is rather like offering his ego. Not just the "manuscripts" he bribed his sons with, but
sports cars. "Mistresses," of course, are eternally popular—and the knowledge they contain, are ways to show that he's a great
the Bishop's imagery of their "great smooth marbly limbs" again man. Again, he's transforming something that could teach him
presents bodies as stony art, status symbols. But modern-day to look beyond himself—learning, art, religion—into a status
readers might be confused by the allure of "brown Greek symbol. He's like a perverse alchemist, turning gold to lead.
manuscripts." What would these venal young men want with
crumbly old scrolls? They seem more likely to be interested in LINES 80-84
partying at the "brave Frascati villa" with their "marbly" lady And then how I shall lie through centuries,
friends. And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
But this is another moment of Renaissance scene-setting. And see God made and eaten all day long,
Remember, ancient Greece and Rome were in vogue in And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Renaissance Italy. So was being an educated, well-read man, Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
with the skills to translate Latin and Greek. And books Struggling past his anxiety about whether his sons will build his
(especially antique "manuscripts") were still treasured in the tomb the way he says, the Bishop now slips back into his
16th century; the printing press was a relativ
relatively
ely recent favorite hobby, fantasizing about how death won't really be
in
invvention in the Bishop's time, and books remained costly and anything like death.
rare.
In these lines, the Bishop imagines how he'll "lie through
Once again, then, the poem points out the ways that centuries" in the comfort of his elegant tomb (words that might
Renaissance learning, art, and literature were interwoven with contain a subtle pun
pun: his tomb, which will present him as a great
status, ego, and wealth. The connection will get even clearer in and holy man, will certainly "lie" for him all through the years).
the next lines, when the Bishop requests his epitaph. Take a look at his imagery here:
LINES 76-79
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
—That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, And see God made and eaten all day long,
Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, And feel the steady candle-flame
candle-flame, and taste
No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line— Good strong thick stupefying incense-smok
incense-smokee!
Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!
Having dangled saintly favors before his sons' eyes, bribing The Bishop works his way through all his senses, one by one,
them to do what he tells them, the Bishop remembers yet underlining the laundry-list quality of his description with all
another requirement for his tomb: a fitting epitaph. Here, the that anaphor
anaphoraa on the word "and." In his imagination, he won't
relationship between learning and status becomes even want for any sensory pleasure; even his sense of "taste" will be

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satisfied by that "good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke." posing as if he's holding his ceremonial crozier
crozier—a
Readers are already familiar with the Bishop's delusions that curved staff modeled on the ones shepherds use,
his consciousness will stay right where it is in his body after he's symbolizing a priest's role as the "shepherd" of his
congregation. (Of course, the Bishop has never
dead. What's new here is the way that belief interacts with the
played this part very convincingly.)
high drama of the Catholic Mass.
• He stretches his feet out "straight as stone can
In these lines, the Bishop describes watching a sacred religious point," like the toes of a recumbent effigy
effigy.
rite as if it were a dinner show. Everything he brings up here • He even arranges his blankets as if they were a
has a holy purpose, from the "blessed mutter" of ritual language "mortcloth," the embroidered cloth draped over a
to the "incense-smoke" that symbolizes prayer rising to God's coffin—but, in particular, a "mortcloth" as
ears. Once more, though, his imagination seems to stop at the represented in "sculptor's-work," in stone. He
physical pleasure of the rites. Even his description of tweaks the fabric until it falls in elegant "laps and
transubstantiation—watching "God made and eaten all day folds," as it would if it were carved.
long"—sounds more like a novelty act than like something he
seriously believes. In other words, he deals with his fear and loneliness by
Part of what might have attracted this hopelessly materialistic pretending he's his own effigy. "Death can't be so bad as all
man to a career in the Church, these lines suggest, is the that," this bedtime ritual seems to say; "I'll just be a statue, like
physical beauty of Catholic ritual. These lines might even point this!"
to one of the oldest Protestant criticisms of Catholic The Bishop, these lines remind readers, isn't just a selfish,
Christianity: the idea that all the sensory splendor of Catholic pompous, greedy old man. He's also a sick and frightened one.
churches and Catholic rites might distract people from spiritual There's something macabre about this image of the Bishop
matters. The idea that the "incense-smoke" is "stupefying" (that rehearsing to become a statue, but also something close to
is, dazing and intoxicating) might suggest that the Church's touching: his delusional escapism here seems pathetically
wealth might be more a, well, smokescreen than a spiritual aid. childish. Perhaps his smallmindedness hasn't just made him a
At any rate, the Bishop's appreciation of the Mass here is totally bad man, but also prevented him from growing up.
irreligious. Even the idea that he might just lie comfortably in LINES 91-96
his tomb watching all the pageantry for eternity suggests that
he's never believed one word of what he preaches: the thought And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
of a Christian afterlife doesn't even seem to occur to him. Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
About the life before I lived this life,
LINES 85-90 And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,
For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
Dying in state and by such slow degrees, Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, The Bishop might be doing his fruitless best to flee from death,
And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, but reality seems to be catching up with him. As his bedside
And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop "tapers dwindle"—that is, as the candles rather symbolically
Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work: melt, suggesting that his time on earth is almost over—he
The Bishop has just finished fantasizing about how death will describes how he's visited by thoughts of his past life.
mean nothing any worse than kicking back and enjoying the He finds these thoughts "strange" and unnerving,
Mass from his tomb: he can't face thoughts of either oblivion or uncontrollable; they seem to fly at him like a swarm of bugs,
an afterlife. Now, he returns for a moment to his real-life making "a certain humming in [his] ears." The imagery here
predicament, lying awake for "hours
hours of the dead night
night," dying suggests that the Bishop is starting to lose his grip. He's at the
"by such slow degrees
degrees." Here, he's repeating language he used mercy of his memories now.
way back at the beginning of the poem—a choice that makes his It's not clear how he responds to these memories. He only lists
thoughts sound increasingly circular and desperate. the images that present themselves to his imagination: he
His method of coping with these long, anxious nights seems remembers his past life, before he was a bishop, and then the
similarly desperate. As he lies there in the dark, he starts to confused crowd of "popes, cardinals, and priests" he's had to
rehearse being, not a dead body, but a deathless effigy. Once deal with in his current role. He remembers, too, his lover, his
again, it seems as if he's imagining turning to stone when he sons' mother, in much more detail than he's gone into before:
dies, not rotting away: here, she's not just "fair," but a "tall pale" woman with "talking
eyes," an expressive and lively figure who might almost be right
• He "fold[s] his arms as if they clasped a crook," there in the room with him.

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But if the Bishop's memories are newly vivid, they're also little closer to a moment of genuine self-knowledge. As the next
muddled. He doesn't only think of his past, but of "Saint Praxed lines show, even getting this close to insight is too much for the
at his sermon on the mount," an image that repeats language Bishop to bear.
from his sculpture instructions back in lines 56-62, but also
confuses the female Saint Praxed with Christ himself. LINES 102-105
The Bishop's grip, these lines show, is weakening. He's helpless All
not only before death, but before the workings of his own mind. lapis
, all, sons! Else I give the Pope
LINES 97-101 My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
And new-found agate urns as fresh as day, Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,
And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet, They glitter like your mother's for my soul,
—Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend? For one bare moment, the Bishop has looked inward, sifting
No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! through a swirl of memories and half-acknowledging that his
Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. life has been both "evil and brief." Now, that insight sends him
After spending a few moments drifting off into confused veering back toward tomb design. In his fear and paranoia, his
memories, the Bishop wrenches himself back to his normal demands leap from lavish to outright delusional. At this point,
state. His dreams of saints, popes, and lovers eventually even "jasper" isn't a rich enough stone to distract him from
meander back around to "new-found agate urns as fresh as thoughts of death: now, only a tomb made entirely of "lapis" can
day"—that is, recently unearthed antique stone vases, a subject sate him.
much more to his customary tastes. Again, he's interested in This is rather like demanding that your tomb be built entirely
the fact that such "urns" remain "as fresh as day": it's the lasting from opals. But in a frenzy of mortal terror, the Bishop only
power of these artifacts that really pleases him. The Bishop, knows one thing to do: spend more money.
readers will notice, is not a man who's fond of decay. All his life, the Bishop has used money to get his own way. Now,
Thinking of agate makes him think of marble, which makes him as his body fails him, he finds that money only goes so far. He
think of elegant Latin inscriptions—and this, at last, returns him can threaten to rewrite his will and leave all his "villas" to the
to his usual self: Pope rather than his sons if they don't build him a lapis tomb.
The problem is, he won't be around to watch them, or to change
And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet, his will if they defy him; his threats are unavoidably toothless.
—Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend? Ironically
Ironically, the very money that gave him power in life makes
No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! him powerless now. His sons' greed for their inheritance is all
part of what makes them not want to build him the tomb he
These lines make a complex scholarly joke. Here, the Bishop is demands.
criticizing the inscription on Gandolf's tomb (which he seems to The Bishop knows it, too. "Will ye ever eat my heart?" he cries
have spitefully memorized—remember, he's lying at home in his in despair. Again, there's a twisted allusion to the holy flesh-
"state-chamber," not at St. Praxed's itself). It's not just that it eating of transubstantiation here. The selfish Bishop has never
says "ELUCESCEBAT" (that is, "he was illustrious," a point the been in any kind of emotional "communion" with his sons; now,
Bishop would certainly debate). It's that it uses a particular he has no interest in willingly sacrificing himself—or his wealth,
Latin verb form the Bishop finds inelegant. Only "Ulpian," he which to him is the same thing—for their benefit.
scoffs again, would use such workmanlike Latin; old Gandolf
Feeling his powerlessness, he begins to hiss insults at the boys.
was "no Tully" (a.k.a. Cicero)!
Listen to the assonance in this passage:
Such pettiness will feel pretty familiar to readers by now. But
here, something new intrudes. Ever your eyes were as a liizard's quiick,
In the past, the Bishop has occasionally thrown a Christian They gliitter like your mother's for my soul,
aphorism or two into his monologue, as if remembering he's
meant to sound like a holy man. He does so now, muttering: All those short, quick /i/ sounds evoke exactly what the Bishop
"Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage." This familiar metaphor is describing: the speedy, reptilian glances his sons are darting
describes life on earth as a holy journey; the Bishop's own at each other as they conspire. The idea that their eyes "glitter
journey, he says, has been both bad and short. like [their] mother's" suggests that the Bishop sees a family
The Bishop's earlier aphorisms have always sounded resemblance, not just in their faces, but in their attitudes:
memorized and mechanical. But this one comes so much out of perhaps his lover was just as greedy as he.
nowhere that it feels like a quiet aside, something that creeps a But the Bishop also feels as if the boys' eyes are glittering "for

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[his] soul," as if they want to snap up not just his wealth but his "Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!
very essence (though of course, he seems to think the two are For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
essentially identical). The image of these lizardy sons waiting to To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it!
drag the Bishop's soul away paints a nightmarish picture of Throughout the poem, the Bishop has proved that he's an
them as lurking, scaly devils, preparing to spirit him off to hell. utterly irreligious and hypocritical man. But as he makes these
LINES 106-111 final demands for lavish sculptures and stones, he seems to be
edging uneasily close to some of the ideas he's given lip service
Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze, to all his life. Back in line 101, for instance, he declared, "Evil
Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase and brief hath been my pilgrimage," with just a touch more
With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term, honesty and sincerity than he's shown before. Now, he tiptoes
And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx right up to a Christian belief: the Resurrection.
That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
To comfort me on my entablature Earlier in the poem, the Bishop described lying in bed
wondering: "Do I live, am I dead?" Then, those words suggested
If his sons weren't just waiting to pounce on their inheritance, a man enduring an encounter with his own emptiness. Now, he
the Bishop goes on, they'd prove their sincerity by promising to repeats them, with a difference:
make his bronze frieze—the bas-relief tomb sculpture with all
the "Nymphs and Pans," remember—even more spectacular. And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
The lavish design he suggested before, the Bishop says, will That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
actually be "impoverished," "starved," and sparse if the boys To comfort me on my entablature
don't add even more elaborate figures to "comfort" him as he Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
lies eternally on his stone "entablature." "Do I liv
live,
e, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!
Like his demand that his tomb be built from "lapis," the Bishop's
new ideas start to sound almost comically excessive. Now it Here, the Bishop is no longer imagining lying on his stony bed
feels as if he's just slinging all the classical imagery he can think forever enjoying the Mass. Instead, he looks to the future with
of at this imagined sculpture: an "until": he'll only lie there, these lines suggest, until he once
again has to ask "Do I live, am I dead?" And that won't happen
• The "vase" he requested before must now overflow until Judgment Day. The Bishop's thoughts of the future here
with grapes; subtly allude to the Christian idea that, at the end of time, the
• The boys should find some way to wedge a "vizor" dead will rise from their graves to be judged—a process in
(an ornate helmet) and a "Term" (a statue of the god which the Bishop seems unlikely to come off especially well.
Terminus) in there;
The very thought seems to be too much for him. Now, he flies
• And a "lynx," a wild cat, should be tied to the oracle's
"tripod" he already specified, and knocking down the into wild exclamations. Listen to his caesur
caesurae
ae here:
"thyrsus" (Bacchus's staff).
[...] There, || leave me, || there!
The specific requests he makes here don't just feel higgledy- For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
piggledy and random. They also embody his own panic. That To death— || ye wish it— || God, ye wish it! [...]
struggling "lynx" knocking things over sounds a lot like a symbol
of the savage anxiety the Bishop feels now. And the "Term," an These mid-line pauses make it sound as if the Bishop is
armless statue once used to mark boundaries
boundaries, subconsciously practically choking with rage and fear.
hints that he's edging ever closer to the boundary between the Perhaps the most chilling part of these lines is the sense that
living and the dead—and that he himself is "armless," unable to the boys make no real response to their dying father's outburst.
act. All through the poem, the Bishop has carefully observed them
In short, the Bishop's old tricks aren't working, and he can feel whispering and darting lizardy glances at each other. Now, by
himself losing his grip. In the past, he could always just throw all indications, they silently look on while the Bishop howls.
more wealth at his insecurities. Now, his efforts to pile one rich These lines might lead readers to reflect that those very sons
image on top of another are obviously futile: he can imagine all are the Bishop's true legacy. These scheming, selfish boys are
the sculptures he wants, but he has no power to make them the real monument he's leaving behind him: a whole new
real. generation of men like him.

LINES 112-115 LINES 115-118

Whereon I am to lie till I must ask Stone—
Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat

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As if the corpse they keep were oozing through— —Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
And no more And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
lapis That I may watch at leisure if he leers—
to delight the world! Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone,
The Bishop's outburst leads him into a nasty fantasy. From As still he envied me, so fair she was!
agonized cries that his sons want him to die, he swerves back to The Bishop's long speech has brought him to a crisis. He's been
the symbolic stones his imagination has clung to all along. He forced to confront the reality of decay, acknowledged his "evil
seems almost to be raving, seeing a nightmare vision before his and brief" life, and even sidled right up to the edge of religious
very eyes. Listen to his awful imagery here: belief. Perhaps readers might hope that he's on the verge of a
deeper kind of self-knowledge, maybe even some humility or
[...] ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone— remorse. But the poem's last lines dash those hopes. The
Gritstone, a-crumble
a-crumble! Clamm
Clammyy squares which sweat bishop's terror of "oozing" corpses and crumbling "gritstone"
As if the corpse the
theyy kkeep
eep were oozing through
through— only pushes him right back into his old habits.
First, he dismisses his sons, with what sounds like a rote and
All along, the Bishop has imagined stone as both an extension of insincere blessing. Sending them away, he seems to be sinking
his body and a way that he can make his wealth and status back into his vision of himself as his own effigy:
concrete and permanent. In this image of a leaky, crumbly
coffin, the darker side of that idea comes out. When the Bishop • He tells them to take away some of the "tapers" (or
describes cheap sandstone that seems to "sweat" like an oozing candles), and to line the rest of them up in a neat
corpse, it's clear that what he's afraid of isn't just shoddy row, as if he's arranging the lighting on a stage.
craftsmanship. It's the actual, horrific, disgusting process of • He even instructs the boys on how to leave, telling
decay—the worst thing a materialist can imagine. them to go "like departing altar-ministrants"—a
In other words, the Bishop has transferred his terror over his simile that suggests he's imagining them as altar
own mortality to the stones. Imagining a coffin that appears to servers, conducting a ritual around the holy edifice
rot, he reveals that what he really can't handle is the idea his of his tomb.
body will rot, no matter what kind of stone it's encased in.
There's an oozing corpse in every tomb, whether that tomb is In other words, he's escaping into a familiar old fantasy, falling
made of "gritstone," "onion-stone," or "lapis." into the same egotistical patterns he's spent his whole life
acting out.
The very sounds of this passage suggest the Bishop's disgust
and horror: The repetitions in the poem's final lines make that point even
clearer:
Gritsstone, a-ccrumble! Clammy sq
squares which sweat
As if the corpsse they keep were oo
oozing throu
ough— And leave me in my church, the church for peace
peace,
That I may watch at leisure if he leers—
The hissing, sibilant /s/ sounds, hacking /k/ sounds (which Old Gandolf
Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone
onion-stone,
appear as alliter
alliteration
ation and consonance
consonance), and gluey /oo/ As still he en
envied
vied me, so fair she was
was!
assonance both evoke the foul scene the Bishop pictures and
suggest he might almost be on the verge of vomiting at the very Readers will remember these exact words, and these exact
thought. preoccupations, from the very beginning of the poem. The
Bishop retreats into his obsessive spite as if he's ducking under
These lines work like a traditional memento mori
mori—a reminder a security blanket.
that death comes to everyone, and equalizes everyone. All
bones look the same; all corpses ooze. The "lapis" the Bishop There's something pitiable about these repetitions. The Bishop
longs for can't save him from this shared human reality. sounds like nothing so much as a demented old man, repeating
the same stories to himself over and over.
But once again, the poem drops a little hint that art can indeed
cheat death, at least for a while. Tombs of lapis and marble But what's pitiable here is also frightening. A mind like the
might indeed "delight the world" long after their inhabitants are Bishop's, these lines suggest, is inherently circular. Believing in
nothing but dust. nothing beyond himself, the selfish Bishop can only circle the
same ideas obsessively, even to the brink of death. His mingled
LINES 119-125 egotism and materialism themselves become the tomb of a
Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, rotting soul.
But in a row: and, going, turn your backs

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SYMBOLS 'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve / My bath

must needs be left behind, alas! / One block, pure green
THE STONES as a pistachio nut, / There's plenty jasper somewhere in
the world—”
The many different kinds of stone the Bishop lists in • Lines 102-103: “All / lapis / , all, sons! Else I give the
this poem, from marble to basalt to travertine, Pope / My villas!”
symbolize two things: • Lines 115-118: “Stone— / Gritstone, a-crumble!
Clammy squares which sweat / As if the corpse they
• The ultimate emptiness of wealth and power. keep were oozing through— / And no more / lapis / to
• The longevity of art. delight the world!”

The Bishop can't seem to stop thinking about what stone his
tomb will be made out of. He pours scorn on the cheap "onion- THE BISHOP'S TOMB
stone" from which his rival Gandolf's tomb is built, and keeps The Bishop's imagined tomb is a symbol of his empty
upgrading his demands for his own tomb: first, he wants egotism and greed.
"basalt," then peach-colored "marble," then "jasper," then "lapis
As the Bishop designs his tomb, he imagines it almost as a
lazuli," a progression that moves from the just-about-
palace: a splendid resting place built from semiprecious stones,
reasonable to the ludicrously expensive. (Asking for a tomb
ornamented with bronze sculpture, engraved with the most
made of lapis lazuli is a little bit like asking for a tomb made
tasteful Latin, and—most important of all—far more elegant
entirely from opals!) He's trying his best to preserve his status,
than the tomb of his rival Gandolf. Not only does the Bishop
even in the face of death.
want his tomb to outdo Gandolf's, he wants it to have his effigy
Of course, none of these rich stones can change the fact that (a memorial statue of him) posed in exactly the same way as a
the Bishop isn't long for this world. His obsessive focus on famous statue of "God the Father" himself.
wealth and status, symbolized by these increasingly fancy but
The Bishop's vision of this monument is thus also a picture of
lifeless rocks, can't cover up the emptiness of his soul.
how he thinks of himself: as the most important person in the
On the other hand, though, tombs carved from beautiful stone universe. But the poem hints that this tomb will never actually
do last. The permanence of sculpture can be a reminder of the get built, thus suggesting that all the Bishop's egotism—and the
brevity of human life: the Bishop's tomb will, by definition, Bishop himself—will ultimately come to nothing.
outlive him, perhaps for centuries.
The poem's stones thus invite readers to think about both the Where this symbol appears in the poem:
brevity of life and the lasting power of art. The Bishop might be
• Lines 15-33: “And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought /
wrong to think that he can cling to wealth and status beyond
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: / —Old
the grave—but he's not wrong that later generations will see Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; / Shrewd was that
and marvel at Renaissance tombs just like his. snatch from out the corner south / He graced his carrion
with, God curse the same! / Yet still my niche is not so
Where this symbol appears in the poem: cramped but thence / One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-
side, / And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, /
• Line 25: “And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,”
And up into the aery dome where live / The angels, and a
• Lines 29-33: “Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the
sunbeam's sure to lurk: / And I shall fill my slab of basalt
ripe / As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. / —Old
there, / And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, / With
Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, / Put me where I
those nine columns round me, two and two, / The odd
may look at him! True peach, / Rosy and flawless: how I
one at my feet where Anselm stands: / Peach-blossom
earned the prize!”
marble all, the rare, the ripe / As fresh-poured red wine
• Lines 42-44: “Some lump, ah God, of / lapis lazuli, / Big
of a mighty pulse. / —Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-
as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, / Blue as a vein o'er
stone, / Put me where I may look at him! True peach, /
the Madonna's breast...”
Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!”
• Lines 47-49: “So, let the blue lump poise between my
• Lines 47-49: “So, let the blue lump poise between my
knees, / Like God the Father's globe on both His hands /
knees, / Like God the Father's globe on both His hands /
Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,”
Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,”
• Lines 53-54: “Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black— /
• Lines 53-62: “Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black— /
'Twas ever antique-black I meant! ”
'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else / Shall ye
• Lines 68-72: “Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then! /

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doesn’t just make him a corrupt and selfish man, but a cowardly
contrast my frieze to come beneath? / The bas-relief in and delusional one as well.
bronze ye promised me, / Those Pans and Nymphs ye The deep irony here, then, is that the very man whose job it is
wot of, and perchance / Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase
to teach love, selflessness, faith, and generosity possesses none
or so, / The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, / Saint
of these qualities himself.
Praxed in a glory, and one Pan / Ready to twitch the
Nymph's last garment off, / And Moses with the tables...”
• Lines 68-72: “Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then! / Where Iron
Ironyy appears in the poem:
'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve / My bath • Lines 1-125
must needs be left behind, alas! / One block, pure green
as a pistachio nut, / There's plenty jasper somewhere in
IMAGERY
the world—”
• Lines 76-79: “—That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, / The poem's sensuous imagery underlines just how attached to
Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, / No worldly pleasures the Bishop is.
gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line— / Tully, my Much of the imagery here is all in the Bishop's imagination. As
masters? Ulpian serves his need!” he pictures his glorious tomb, he describes the rich stones he
• Lines 106-110: “Or ye would heighten my impoverished wants it carved from: "peach-blossom marble" in a "rosy and
frieze, / Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase / flawless" pink; a "lump [...] of lapis lazuli" that's as "blue as a vein
With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term, / And to the o'er the Madonna's breast"; a great block of jasper "pure green
tripod ye would tie a lynx / That in his struggle throws as a pistachio nut."
the thyrsus down,”
His intensely specific imagery here makes it sound as if he's
caressing each stone one by one—and as if those stones were
almost edible, delicacies he longs to devour. From "peach" to
POETIC DEVICES "wine" to "pistachio," there's a banquet of stones here.

IRONY The image of lapis that's blue as a vein in "the Madonna's

breast" suggests sexual desire, too. The Bishop's memories of
The Bishop's hypocrisy is the poem's fundamental ironironyy. This his one-time mistress, a "tall pale" woman with "talking eyes,"
supposedly holy man, quick to spout familiar aphorisms about hints that he's haunted by all kinds of lost physical pleasures.
the brevity of life and the emptiness of worldly wealth, is in
truth a money-grubbing, lustful, materialistic old sinner. Perhaps his vivid sense of all that's delightful in the physical
world is part of what makes death seem like such an
Everything this Bishop has done during his tenure in a incomprehensible horror to him. This ironically irreligious
supposedly selfless pastoral job has been in the service of his bishop takes no comfort in the idea of an afterlife; when he's
personal comfort. He’s used his wealth to build countless forced to think of the physical realities of death, he recoils in
country houses, stolen treasures from his own church, and horror from the image of cheap stones which bead up with
fathered a substantial clan of illegitimate children. To him, being damp "as if the corpse they keep were oozing through."
a Bishop just means having easier access to wealth, power, and
pleasure. The Bishop's imagery thus helps readers understand the
Bishop's deep materialism, which makes him cling to earthly
He even behaves as if his church’s patron saint, St. Praxed, is pleasures in order to flee earthly realities.
just another higher-up he can pull strings with: he offers to put
a good word in with her for his sons if they follow his tomb
Where Imagery appears in the poem:
designs to the letter. In short, if this Bishop ever really believed
in his religion or cared for his congregation, there’s absolutely • Lines 23-24: “And up into the aery dome where live / The
no sign of it in his behavior. angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:”
Not only does the Bishop fail to live by the tenets of his religion, • Lines 27-30: “With those nine columns round me, two
he can’t even die by them. Without real faith, he can take no and two, / The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:
comfort in the thought of a Christian afterlife. His obsession / Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe / As fresh-
poured red wine of a mighty pulse.”
with his splendid tomb is a cover for his fear of death:
• Lines 32-33: “True peach, / Rosy and flawless: how I
whenever he begins to ponder his mortality, he quickly turns
earned the prize!”
his mind to semiprecious stones and elaborate sculpture
• Lines 36-44: “Go dig / The white-grape vineyard where
instead. He can’t even seem to face the bare facts of death,
the oil-press stood, / Drop water gently till the surface
instead imagining that he’ll just lie cozy in his church enjoying
sink, / And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I! ... / Bedded
“the blessed mutter of the mass” for eternity. His hypocrisy

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Italian Renaissance. When he describes his buried lump of lapis
in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, / And corded up in a as "blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast," readers might
tight olive-frail, / Some lump, ah God, of / lapis lazuli, / imagine one of the countless Renaissance images of the Virgin
Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, / Blue as a vein Mary nursing the baby Jesus. Renaissance art was marked not
o'er the Madonna's breast...” just by a renewed interest in classical art and myth, but by a
• Line 71: “One block, pure green as a pistachio nut,” whole new artistic style. Religious painting, once stylized and
• Lines 74-75: “Horses for ye, and brown Greek two-dimensional
two-dimensional, became so lifelike that one might indeed see
manuscripts, / And mistresses with great smooth marbly the very veins under Mary's skin. The Bishop's allusions, in
limbs?” other words, are right up to date with the artistic fashions of his
• Lines 80-84: “And then how I shall lie through centuries, time.
/ And hear the blessed mutter of the mass, / And see God
made and eaten all day long, / And feel the steady candle- The Bishop's snobbery about Gandolf's bad tomb Latin also
flame, and taste / Good strong thick stupefying incense- helps to evoke his era. Not everyone would have learned Latin:
smoke!” it was the language of the upper classes. When the Bishop
• Lines 87-90: “I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, / scornfully notes that Gandolf's inscription could have been
And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, / composed by "Ulpian" (a minor Latin writer), and only "Tully"
And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop / Into great (that is, Cicero, a famous Roman orator) will do for him, he
laps and folds of sculptor's-work:” makes it clear that he very much considers himself part of an
• Lines 91-92: “strange thoughts / Grow, with a certain elegant, educated elite.
humming in my ears,” The poem's allusions thus help readers to imagine the
• Line 96: “Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,” Renaissance world around the Bishop, and to see how he—as a
• Lines 104-105: “Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick, / wealthy, educated, and hypocritical clergyman—was a man of
They glitter like your mother's for my soul,” his time.
• Lines 115-117: “Stone— / Gritstone, a-crumble!
Clammy squares which sweat / As if the corpse they
Where Allusion appears in the poem:
keep were oozing through—”
• Line 1: “Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!”
ALLUSION • Line 3: “Nephews—sons mine...ah God, I know not!
Well—”
The poem's allusions help to conjure up the Bishop's Italian
• Line 14: “Saint Praxed's”
Renaissance world and to underline his deep hypocrisy.
• Lines 43-44: “Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, /
The Bishop may have no real religious faith to speak of, but he Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast...”
does know how to talk the talk. Many of the poem's allusions • Line 46: “That brave Frascati villa with its bath,”
quote the Bible or refer to biblical stories. The poem's first line, • Lines 48-49: “Like God the Father's globe on both His
for instance—"Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!"—is an allusion hands / Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,”
to the book of Ecclesiastes, which warns that life is brief and • Lines 57-62: “Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and
worldly power ultimately meaningless. perchance / Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, / The
In fact, some of the Bishop's ideas for tomb sculpture are drawn Saviour at his sermon on the mount, / Saint Praxed in a
from important moments in the Bible: the "sermon on the glory, and one Pan / Ready to twitch the Nymph's last
mount," a speech Christ delivers in the New Testament, and garment off, / And Moses with the tables...”
"Moses with the tables," Moses holding the stone tablets • Lines 77-79: “Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every
word, / No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line— /
engraved with the Ten Commandments.
Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!”
All these Christian allusions are surrounded by classical ones. • Lines 99-100: “—Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
The Bishop doesn't just want Christ and Moses on his tomb, / No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!”
but "Pans and Nymphs" (forest spirits) and all sorts of other • Lines 107-110: “Piece out its starved design, and fill my
Greek and Roman iconography. This mingling of Christian and vase / With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term, / And to
pagan imagery suggests that the Bishop is more interested in the tripod ye would tie a lynx / That in his struggle
what looks good on a tomb frieze than in religious devotion. It throws the thyrsus down,”
also sets the poem firmly in the Italian Renaissance, a time and
place when artists were equally interested in depicting APHORISM
religious and classical stories (and sometimes even fused the
In the midst of his instructions to his sons, the Bishop
two, as in this famous painting of John the Baptist/Bacchus).
sometimes seems to remember his role as a religious leader
Even the Bishop's similes draw on the artistic landscape of the and throws in a Christian aphorism or two. His mechanical use

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of these sayings both makes it clear he doesn't have an ounce of clear that he doesn't really believe in what he's saying.
real faith and ironically plays up his hypocrisy: every one of The metaphors he uses to describe the things he does believe
these lines is absolutely true, and absolutely applicable to him. in—his own pleasure and importance—are much more striking,
Most of the Bishop's aphorisms have to do with life's brevity and reveal a lot about what kind of a guy he is.
and the emptiness of worldly wealth and power. But the fact When he describes the "aery dome" of St. Praxed's, for example,
that he uses such familiar sayings to discuss these issues he says that "a sunbeam's sure to lurk" up there somewhere.
suggests that he's only giving them lip service; he knows what This odd moment of personification turns a shaft of sunlight
he's meant to say, but he's far more eloquent on the subject of into a shadowy figure; most lurking gets done in dark places,
all the semiprecious stones he wants his tomb built from. after all, and for dark reasons. Even as the Bishop describes the
When he observes, for instance, that death reveals that "the heavenly sight of sunbeams piercing a richly decorated church
world's a dream," he's using an old cliché
cliché—one whose truth dome, his metaphor suggests trickery and crime.
doesn't seem to strike him even as he faces down his own It's not surprising, then, that he imagines his sons not just
death. He does the same thing in lines 51-54, even more disappointing him, but "stabb[ing]" him "with ingratitude." This
blatantly: metaphor suggests that he sees the world in pretty mercenary
terms: in his eyes, everyone's just waiting to run a metaphorical
Swift as a wea
weavver's shuttle fleet our yyears:
ears: knife into someone else's back (and perhaps sometimes a literal
Man goeth to the grgraave, and where is he? knife, too). This untrustworthy Bishop has no reason to trust
Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black— anyone else!
'Twas ever antique-black I meant! [...]
No wonder, then, that he puts most of his energy into hoarding
treasures and delights for himself, and sees much of the world
Notice how quickly the Bishop's mind veers from these pat
in material terms. When he scorns the "gaudy ware" of his rival
sayings to the design of his tomb, and how much more urgent
Gandolf's tomb inscription, he describes a Latin phrase as if it
his voice sounds when he demands "antique-black" marble than
were cheap, tacky goods, turning even language into just
when he intones, "Man goeth to the grave."
another status symbol.
Perhaps the most ironic of the Bishop's aphorisms appears in
line 101: "Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage" (or, in other
Where Metaphor appears in the poem:
words, "my journey through life has been short and sinful").
This is a very traditional Renaissance Catholic sort of thing to • Line 9: “And thence ye may perceive the world's a
say—and what's more, it seems to be completely true. But if the dream.”
Bishop lets the reality of his own words sink in, he gives no sign • Line 24: “a sunbeam's sure to lurk”
of it; a moment later he's back to thinking about lapis lazuli • Line 78: “No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line—”
again. • Line 96: “Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,”
• Line 101: “Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.”
• Line 114: “For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude”
Where Aphorism appears in the poem:
• Line 1: “Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!” SIMILE
• Lines 8-9: “And as she died so must we die ourselves, /
And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.” The Bishop's similes let readers into his covetous, glittering
• Lines 51-52: “Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years: imagination.
/ Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?” The Bishop often uses similes to describe the kinds of
• Line 101: “Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.” marvelous stones he wants his tomb carved out of. The "peach-
blossom marble" he demands at first, for instance, should be as
METAPHOR richly colored "as fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse." In
other words, it should look just like wine right after it's been
The Bishop's metaphors help to char
characterize
acterize him, giving
pressed, when it gets poured off the grape mash. And the jasper
readers a sense of the way he sees the world.
he wants later on should be "pure green as a pistachio nut."
Some of the Bishop's metaphors are also clichés
clichés: "the world's a Both of these similes present the stones not just as beautiful,
dream," for instance, or the dramatic (but insincere) declaration, but as delicious: sweet as a peach, rich as wine, savory as
"evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage." Note that both of pistachio. The Bishop's greed, these similes suggest, makes him
these metaphors—the world as nothing more than a fleeting into a devourer.
vision, the Bishop's time on earth as a holy journey gone
The similes he uses to describe the precious lapis lazuli he's
wrong—are just ways the Bishop pays lip service to his role as a
buried in his vineyards also suggest his covetousness. The
religious leader. Resorting to well-worn images, he makes it

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"lump" of stone, he tells his sons, is: Parallelism also shapes his fantastical visions of the decorative
frieze he wants to adorn the tomb itself:
Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vvein
ein o'er the Madonna's breast... Those PPans
ans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
Some tripod
tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
Both of these images draw on Renaissance art traditions. The The Sa
Saviour
viour at his sermon on the mount,
"vein o'er the Madonna's breast" evokes paintings of the Virgin Saint Pr
Prax
axed
ed in a glory, [...]
Mary nursing the baby Jesus. And the "Jew's head" might be an
allusion to the severed head of John the Baptist, another Each of the lines here starts with another item the Bishop
common theme in Renaissance painting (though it could also wants depicted in his sculpture. The parallelism here might
just be Renaissance-era antisemitism): draw the reader's attention to the fact that he thinks of "Pans
and Nymphs"—classical forest spirits, known for partying—long
• The Bishop's similes here suggest he's thinking in before he hauls his attention around to the Christian imagery
the terms of a 16th-century world that often that might seem more appropriate for a Bishop's tomb!
married religious devotion with displays of wealth;
paintings of these subjects would have been used as Where P
Par
arallelism
allelism appears in the poem:
devotional objects in a church like St. Praxed's, but
they'd also have shown off just how rich the Bishop • Line 8: “And”
was. • Line 9: “And”
• But they also link the Bishop's treasure to images of • Line 22: “And”
fleshly beauty and violence—neither of which, it • Line 23: “And”
seems, the Bishop has been a stranger to. • Line 25: “And”
• Line 26: “And”
• Line 43: “Big as a Jew's head”
Where Simile appears in the poem: • Line 44: “Blue as a vein”
• Lines 29-30: “Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the • Line 57: “Those Pans and Nymphs”
ripe / As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.” • Line 58: “Some tripod”
• Line 43: “Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,” • Line 59: “The Saviour”
• Line 44: “Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast...” • Line 60: “Saint Praxed”
• Line 51: “Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:” • Line 80: “And”
• Line 71: “One block, pure green as a pistachio nut,” • Line 81: “And”
• Line 104: “Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,” • Line 82: “And”
• Line 121: “—Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,” • Line 83: “And”
• Line 88: “And”
• Line 89: “And”
PARALLELISM
• Line 95: “Saint Praxed”
Par
arallelism
allelism helps to evoke the Bishop's preoccupied deathbed • Line 96: “Your tall pale mother”
thoughts. • Line 97: “And”
Much of the parallelism here comes in the form of • Line 98: “And”
anaphor
anaphoraa—long strings of lines that start with the same words.
For instance, take a look at the way the Bishop describes how REPETITION
he imagines spending eternity, lying comfortably in his fabulous The Bishop's repetitions make him sound both obsessive and
tomb: pathetic.

And then how I shall lie through centuries, Sometimes, the Bishop seems to use repetitions on purpose for
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass, effect. For instance, take a look at the diacope and polyptoton
And see God made and eaten all day long, in this passage:
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke! What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
All those "ands" make the Bishop sound as if he's spinning out a And as she died so must we die ourselves,
fantasy at length (and conveniently forgetting that, by the time
he's in his tomb, he'll be too dead to hear, see, feel, or smell a All these variations on words to do with death make it clear
single thing). what one major theme of the Bishop's speech will be. He's all

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too aware that he'll be dead soon—though that doesn't mean speech. (Note that we've only highlighted some representative
he's come to terms with the idea. examples of the poem's alliteration here; there's much more to
In fact, he seems to be struggling desperately to find some find!)
"peace": Often, alliteration evokes not just the scene the Bishop's
describing, but how he feels about it. For instance, listen to the
[...] Peace
eace, peace seems all. sounds he uses in this bitter complaint:
Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace
peace;
—Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
The epizeuxis and diacope on "peace" here, ironically enough, Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner south
suggests that the Bishop is agitated and anxious. As he repeats He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
the word over and over, it's clear that peace is exactly what he
lacks. He thinks he'll find that peace only so long as he gets the The cutting /c/ sounds and hissing sibilant /s/ sounds here make
lavish tomb of his dreams. the Bishop sound as if he's practically spitting with hatred.
But some of the poem's most memorable repetitions—whole Appropriately enough, those same sounds return at the end of
phrases that first appear at the beginning of the poem, and crop the poem in a moment of deep horror:
up again at the end—suggest that this greedy, selfish man is far
too caught up in his own petty power struggles to ever find real Gritstone, a-ccrumble! Clammy squares which sweat
rest. As if the corpse they keep were oozing through—
Haunted by the feeling that he's "dying by degrees" (lines 11
Now, those harsh /c/ sounds and /s/ sounds make the Bishop
and 86), he spends most of his time reflecting that, back in the
sound as if he's recoiling in disgust from the very thought of the
day when he had a beautiful mistress, his old enemy Gandolf
horrible cheap tomb he imagines his sons will build for
"envied [him], so fair she was" (lines 5 and 125). The return of
him—and, subconsciously, from the thought of the oozing
phrases like these suggests that the Bishop is caught up in an
corpses inside all tombs.
awful whirlwind of his own pettiest thoughts; as he lies dying,
he has nothing to comfort him but his past spiteful triumphs. Elsewhere, though, the Bishop's alliteration evokes the very
deathly finality he's so afraid of. Listen to these lines:
Where Repetition appears in the poem:
[...] As here I lie
• Line 1: “Vanity,” “vanity” In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
• Line 5: “Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!” Hours and long hours in the dead night, [...]
• Line 6: “done,” “done,” “dead”
• Line 7: “Dead” Those /d/ sounds fall as heavily as dead bodies.
• Line 8: “died,” “die”
• Line 11: “dying by degrees”
Where Alliter
Alliteration
ation appears in the poem:
• Line 12: “dead”
• Line 13: “"Do I live, am I dead?",” “Peace, peace” • Line 4: “men,” “mother”
• Line 14: “the church for peace” • Line 6: “done,” “done,” “dead”
• Line 27: “two,” “two” • Line 11: “dying,” “degrees”
• Line 53: “Black” • Line 13: “Peace, peace”
• Line 54: “black” • Line 14: “Praxed's,” “peace”
• Line 68: “jasper” • Line 16: “nail,” “niche,” “know”
• Line 69: “jasper” • Line 17: “cozened,” “care”
• Line 72: “jasper” • Line 18: “snatch,” “corner,” “south”
• Line 85: “hours of the dead night” • Line 19: “carrion,” “curse”
• Line 86: “Dying in state and by such slow degrees,” • Line 20: “niche,” “not”
• Line 113: “"Do I live, am I dead?",” “There,” “there” • Line 21: “pulpit,” “epistle”
• Line 115: “ye wish it,” “ye wish it” • Line 22: “silent seats”
• Line 122: “the church for peace” • Line 26: “tabernacle take”
• Line 125: “he envied me, so fair she was” • Line 29: “rare,” “ripe”
• Line 30: “poured,” “pulse”
ALLITERATION • Line 116: “crumble,” “Clammy,” “squares,” “sweat”
• Line 117: “corpse,” “keep”
Alliter
Alliteration
ation adds emphasis and emotion to the Bishop's long

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ASSONANCE other places.)
Assonance
Assonance, like alliter
alliteration
ation, gives the poem emphasis and
music. (Note that we've only highlighted a representative Where Consonance appears in the poem:
sample of the poem's assonance—there's plenty more to find.) • Line 3: “know not”
For instance, listen to the sounds in these lines: • Line 4: “men,” “mother”
• Line 6: “done,” “done,” “dead beside”
Ever your eyes were as a liizard's quiick, • Line 7: “Dead”
They gliitter like your mother's for my soul, • Line 11: “dying,” “degrees”
• Line 13: “Peace, peace seems”
All those short /i/ sounds mirror what they're describing: the • Line 14: “Saint Praxed's,” “peace”
swift, glittery dart of the Bishop's sons' eyes. Assonance here • Line 16: “nail,” “niche,” “know”
helps readers to imagine the scene as these untrustworthy • Line 17: “cozened,” “despite,” “care”
boys gather around their equally untrustworthy father, • Line 18: “snatch,” “corner,” “south”
glancing at each other as if to say: "We only have to humor him • Line 19: “graced,” “carrion,” “God,” “curse,” “same”
a little longer." • Line 21: “pulpit,” “epistle-side”
• Line 22: “somewhat,” “silent seats”
Assonance works like this throughout the poem, drawing the • Line 25: “shall fill,” “slab,” “basalt”
reader's attention to certain moments and bringing the poem's • Line 26: “tabernacle take”
images to life. • Line 29: “rare,” “ripe”
• Line 30: “fresh-poured red,” “pulse”
Where Assonance appears in the poem: • Line 31: “paltry,” “onion-stone”
• Line 4: “mother once” • Line 32: “Put,” “peach”
• Line 5: “envied me”
• Line 9: “perceive,” “dream”
• Line 11: “state-chamber,” “dying by” VOCABULARY
• Line 13: “ Peace, peace seems”
• Line 16: “nail,” “save” Vanity (Line 1) - "Vanity," in this context, means a combination
• Line 18: “out,” “south” of uselessness and arrogance. In other words, it's "all in vain,"
• Line 24: “sure,” “lurk” useless, to try to cling to worldly wealth and power—but it's
• Line 28: “Anselm stands” also "vain," arrogant, to believe you can!
• Line 104: “lizard's,” “quick” Nephews—sons mine (Line 3) - When the Bishop begins by
• Line 105: “glitter” referring to his sons as "nephews," he's drawing on an old
tradition: when Renaissance Catholic priests, who were
CONSONANCE supposed to be celibate, had illegitimate children, those
Consonance
Consonance, especially sibilance
sibilance, works just like (and children were referred to as their nephews and nieces rather
strengthens the effects of) the other sonic devices in the poem than their sons and daughters.
(that is, alliter
alliteration
ation and assonance
assonance). It adds emphasis to certain Fair (Line 5) - Beautiful.
images and ideas, evokes the bishop's tone, and, sometimes,
Thence (Line 9) - From this, through this.
simply makes the poem sound more interesting.
Ye (Line 9, Line 16) - An old-fashioned way of saying "you."
For example, take a look at the way the consonance sounds in
this passage brings the bishop's bitterness to vivid life: State-chamber (Line 11) - An elegant room used for hosting
visitors; the Bishop is dying in style!
—Old Gandolf cozened me, desspite my care; Saint Praxed's (Line 14) - Saint Praxed, to whom the Bishop's
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner south church is dedicated, was an early Christian martyr known for
He gracced his carrion with, God cursse the same! her generosity and piety—virtues this Bishop pointedly lacks.
Niche (Line 16) - An alcove in the church wall where a tomb can
The sibilant hiss of /s/ sounds in words like "desspite," "gracced," fit.
and "cursse" combine with the sharp, biting /k/ sounds to make
this passage sound even more venomous. Cozened (Line 17) - Cheated.

(Note that we've only highlighted the consonance in the first Care (Line 17) - Precautions.
few lines of the poem; the same effect appears in a number of Shrewd (Line 18) - Clever, wily.

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 Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com
Carrion (Line 19) - Dead meat—a nasty way of describing mythology.
Gandolf's dead body. Ye wot of (Line 57) - You know of.
The pulpit o' the epistle-side (Line 21) - In other words, "the Perchance (Line 57) - Perhaps, maybe.
preacher's lectern at the right side of the altar, where New
Some tripod, thyrsus (Line 58) - These are both traditional
Testament readings get delivered during Mass." The Bishop is
objects from classical mythology. A tripod was a three-legged
happy his tomb will have a good view of the church's services.
stand or stool often associated with the Oracle at Delphi,
Choir (Line 22) - An upper-level area of the church where where a priestess sat on a tripod to deliver sacred messages. A
singers perform. thyrsus was a staff decorated with a pinecone, the symbol of
Aery (Line 23) - Airy, spacious, and high up. the wine-god Bacchus.
Basalt (Line 25, Line 53) - A kind of smooth, dark stone. Twitch (Line 61) - Snatch.
Tabernacle (Line 26) - An ornamented box for the consecrated Tables (Line 62) - That is, the stone tablets upon which the Ten
bread used in the Catholic Mass. Commandments were carved.
Pulse (Line 30) - The grape-mash left over from wine-making. Ye mark me not! (Line 63) - In other words, "You're not paying
Paltry (Line 31) - Feeble, meager. attention!"

Onion-stone (Line 31, Line 124) - A kind of cheap marble. It's Child of my bowels (Line 64) - In other words, "child born from
called "onion-stone" because it has a tendency to flake off in my body."
thin layers, like onion skin. Revel (Line 65) - To party.
Conflagration (Line 34) - A huge fire. Travertine (Line 66) - Limestone—relatively cheap and weak
Aught (Line 35) - Anything. compared to the marble the Bishop wants for his tomb.

Corded up in a tight olive-frail (Line 41) - In other words, "tied Tomb-top (Line 67) - The lid of a tomb, decorated with a
up tightly in a basket used for carrying olives." sculpture of the person inside.

Lapis lazuli (Line 42, Line 102, Line 118) - A bright blue stone, Jasper (Line 68, Line 69, Line 72) - A semiprecious stone that
especially prized during the Renaissance. comes in many different colors.

Bequeathed (Line 45) - Passed down in a will, left as an Stand pledged to (Line 69) - That is, "You swear to make my
inheritance. tomb out of jasper."

Villas (Line 45, Line 46, Line 65) - Elegant country Tully (Line 77, Line 79) - Another name for Cicero, a great Latin
houses—palaces from which the wealthy could enjoy the writer.
countryside. Ulpian (Line 79) - Another Latin writer—but one far less
Frascati (Line 46) - A town near Rome, popular with wealthy talented and famous than Cicero.
vacationers. The blessed mutter of the mass (Line 81) - In other words, the
Jesu Church (Line 49) - A church in Rome, which contains a low chant of prayers at Mass, the daily Catholic religious
statue that holds a lump of lapis lazuli—just like the Bishop ceremony.
wants for his own tomb. God made and eaten (Line 82) - This is an allusion to
Shuttle (Line 51) - A tool weavers use to pass the active thread transubstantiation: the Catholic belief that communion bread
(the "weft" thread) between the threads stretched out on a and wine turn to the literal body and blood of Christ during
frame (the "warp" threads). Mass.

Fleet (Line 51) - Speed away. Stupefying (Line 84) - Dazing, narcotic.

Goeth (Line 52) - Goes. The Bishop is using a lofty biblical tone Dying in state (Line 86) - To "die in state" is to have one's
here. deathbed put in a public place so visitors can come and honor
the dying person.
Antique-black (Line 54) - That is, deep black marble.
Crook (Line 87) - An ornamented staff with a curve at one end,
Frieze (Line 55) - A long, horizontal decoration, either sculpted traditionally carried by bishops. Crooks are modeled on the
or painted. hooks shepherds used to steer their sheep, and symbolically
Bas-relief (Line 56) - A kind of sculpture in which figures stand represent the bishop's role as a shepherd caring for his "flock"
out from a flat surface. "Bas-relief" in particular means "low of parishioners.
relief": the figures wouldn't stick out very much. Mortcloth (Line 89) - The expensive, often richly embroidered
Pans and Nymphs (Line 57) - Forest spirits from classical cloth used to cover a body or a coffin.

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Great laps and folds of sculptor's-work (Line 90) - In other in line 6, for example:
words, the bishop arranges his own bedclothes so they look as
if they're carved in stone. What's done | is done
done, | and she | is dead | beside
side,
Yon tapers dwindle (Line 91) - In other words, "those candles
over there shrink." Iambic pentameter is one of the most common meters in
English-language poetry, given that a lot of spoken English
Agate urns (Line 97) - Vases carved from agate, a striped stone.
naturally falls into an iambic rhythm. It's also flexible: the
ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend? (Line 99) - In other words: speaker can easily change up the rhythm for emphasis. Listen to
"Aha, does Gandolf's tomb read 'He was illustrious'?" The what happens in lines 32-33, for example, in which the Bishop
Bishop is snobbishly criticizing, not just what the Latin insists that his sons position his marble tomb so that he can
inscription on Gandolf's tomb says, but how it says it: he thinks comfortably sneer at his old rival Gandolf from the grave:
the particular form of the Latin verb used here is in poor taste!
Impoverished (Line 106) - Poor, deprived. Put me | where I | may look | at him
him! | True peach
peach,
Ro
Rosy | and fla
flaww- | less: how | I earned | the prize
prize!
A vizor and a Term (Line 108) - More classical references. A
"vizor" is a helmet; a "Term" is an armless statue of the god
Making his demands, the Bishop begins his lines with a forceful,
Terminus, traditionally used to mark boundaries.
attention-grabbing trochee
trochee—the opposite foot to an iamb, with
Lynx (Line 109) - A kind of wild cat, often associated with the a DUM
DUM-da rhythm. And he closes line 32 with a punchy
god Bacchus. spondee
spondee, a foot with a DUM
DUM-DUMDUM rhythm, evoking his
Entablature (Line 111) - The platform that will hold up the obsessive, greedy pleasure in the thought of the pink marble
bishop's effigy (that is, the stone statue that represents his that will enclose his dead body. Note that it's possible to scan
dead body). these lines a bit differently (some might read "Put me" as
Gritstone, a-crumble! (Line 116) - In other words: "Cheap another spondee, for instance), but there's definitely a more
sandstone, crumbling away!" urgent rhythm happening. The changed meter here makes the
Bishop's voice spring off the page.
Altar-ministrants (Line 121) - Altar servers—people who help
the priest conduct the Mass. For all these reasons, blank verse is a good choice for a poem in
the form of a monologue. It's no wonder, then, that a lot of
Leers (Line 123) - Stares, either lustfully or maliciously. readers will be familiar with blank verse from Shakespeare,
whose plays often used the form; the famous "To be or not to
be" speech from Hamlet is one good example.
FORM, METER, & RHYME
In choosing blank verse, Browning thus makes his Bishop sound
FORM theatrical. The Bishop speaks in the same form as Shakespeare's
Lear or Leontes
eontes, and his long speeches, like theirs, reveal a lot
"The Bishop Orders His Tomb" is one of Browning's famous
more about his character than he might have intended.
dramatic monologues. That means that it's a poem in the form
of a speech—lines that could have been taken straight out of a RHYME SCHEME
play, and which are delivered to some specific audience who
"The Bishop Orders His Tomb" is written in blank vverse
erse, so it
never actually says anything in the poem. Browning often uses
doesn't use a rh
rhyme
yme scheme
scheme. That makes the Bishop's speech
this form to explore (and criticize) human nature. No need for a
sound natural and conversational; it's as if readers are listening
narrator to comment on the action: the Bishop's own greedy,
in as he lectures his sullen sons about exactly how he wants his
selfish, hypocritical voice condemns him.
tomb to look. (Of course, the rumbling meter and the Bishop's
Like a monologue from a Shakespeare play, this poem is written lofty tone mean he sounds pretty theatrical, too.)
in one long stanza of blank vverse
erse (that is, unrhymed iambic
pentameter—more on that under Meter and Rhyme Scheme).
Besides drawing on English theatrical tradition, this form helps SPEAKER
to characterize the Bishop: the long unbroken stanza makes
him sound obsessive, even crazed. This dramatic monologue's speaker is the greedy, selfish Bishop
of the title. Lying on his deathbed, all the Bishop can think about
METER is making sure his tomb is the most splendid in the church—and,
"The Bishop Orders His Tomb" is written in blank vverse
erse—in in particular, that it's far more splendid than the tomb of his old
other words, unrhymed iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter rival, Gandolf.
means that each of the poem's lines is built from five iambs, The Bishop has clearly been a hypocrite all his life. He
metrical feet with a da-DUM
DUM rhythm. Here's how that sounds

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addresses this monologue to his numerous sons—sons whom homesickness
homesickness, and heartbreak
heartbreak.
he definitely shouldn't have had, considering he's meant to be a "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church" first
celibate Catholic priest. And even as he rolls out clichés about appeared in Browning's important 1845 collection Dramatic
the brevity of life and the emptiness of wealth, he has no Romances and Lyrics—a collection that would deeply influence
thought of the afterlife; he's obsessed with status and power in 20th-century Modernist poets like Ezr Ezraa P
Pound
ound. And Browning
this world. In short, he's an empty, selfish, hollow man. still moves readers to this day: his life and work inspired
contemporary writer A.S. Byatt to write her acclaimed novel
Possession
ossession.
SETTING
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The poem is set beside a 16th-century Bishop's deathbed,
where his illegitimate sons sullenly gather to listen to his last In writing the tale of this Italian Renaissance bishop, Browning
wishes. But readers are left to imagine the elegant "state- was likely inspired by his own time in Italy. He traveled
chamber" where the Bishop lies; the Bishop's mind is firmly on extensively there as a young man, and in 1846 he outright
his church, St. Praxed's, where he hopes his lavish tomb will be moved to Florence so he could marry his beloved Elizabeth
erected. Through the Bishop's descriptions of St. Praxed's "aery Barrett
Barrett. The couple couldn't marry in England because
dome"—and his dreams of the rosy marble, smooth black stone, Elizabeth's tyrannical father was not a fan of the match; he
and rich blue lapis that he intends his tomb will be built would have preferred to keep Elizabeth, a famous (and high-
from—readers get a much clearer vision of a richly ornamented earning) poet, under his own roof.
Italian Renaissance church than a sweaty-sheeted sickbed. This poem draws on Browning's familiarity with both
The poem is thus set more in the speaker's imagination than in Renaissance art—which, as the Bishop describes, often mixes
his actual surroundings. And in part, that's because the speaker Christian and classical imagery—and Renaissance religious
isn't too wild about the physical reality of death: he'd much corruption. Rome in the 16th century was indeed a place where
rather dream of a palatial tomb than attend to his failing body a supposedly pious bishop might well father dozens of sons,
and his empty soul. jockey for power and status, and amass villa upon villa.
This poem isn't just a critique of Renaissance-era religious
hypocrisy, however, but of hypocrisy all through the ages.
CONTEXT Browning, an astute social critic, was not particularly a fan of
the wealthy and powerful of his own era, either—of whom there
LITERARY CONTEXT were many.
The English poet Robert Browning (1812-1889) was most The Victorian age in England was marked by a huge divide
famous in his time for not sounding much like a poet. His between a wealthy upper class and an impoverished lower
contemporaries were confused by his most distinctive works: class, and by a belief that England's upper classes should
dramatic monologues like this one, in which Browning rightfully rule the world because of their innate superiority.
inhabited a character like an actor playing a part. Even Oscar Browning's dramatic monologues tend to point out that those
Wilde
Wilde, a big Browning fan, famously said that "[George] who are supposed to be paragons of virtue are more often
Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning." The deeply selfish hypocrites—and that any nation that believes too
Victorian literary world was much more at ease with the deeply in its greatness is likely to be blinded by self-righteous
melancholy lyricism of Tenn
ennyson
yson or the elegance of Elizabeth frenzies
frenzies.
Barrett Browning (Browning's wife, and a much more famous
poet) than with the novelistic storytelling of Browning's work.
But it's on his earthy, vibrant dramatic monologues that MORE RESOUR
RESOURCES
CES
Browning's continued reputation rests. His most famous
poems are a veritable gallery of villains, from the greedy Bishop EXTERNAL RESOURCES
of St. Praxed's to murderous Italian duk
dukes
es to equally murderous • Browning's Reception — Read a Victorian reviewer's take
lo
lovvers
ers. By making these hideous men speak for themselves, on Browning, and learn more about how Browning's
Browning explored the darkest corners of human nature—and contemporaries understood his poetry.
took a particular interest in the ways that people justify their (https:/
(https://www
/www.theguardian.com/books/2015/ma
.theguardian.com/books/2015/mayy/14/
terrible deeds to themselves. Villains, Browning's monologues robert-browning-poem-re
robert-browning-poem-review-1873)
view-1873)
suggest, don't tend to think that they're villains. • The PPoem
oem Aloud — Watch an actor performing this
Browning's poetry wasn't all theatrical murder and greed, dramatic monologue as if it were a scene from a play.
though; he also wrote tenderly about humility and heroism
heroism, (https:/
(https:///youtu.be/5-lN48Xzh70)

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 Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com
• The Browning Museum — Visit the website of Baylor • My Last Duchess
University's Browning Museum, an archive and library • Porph
orphyria
yria's
's LLo
over
devoted to Browning and his wife and fellow poet • The LLost
ost LLeader
eader
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. (https:/
(https://www
/www.ba
.baylor
ylor.edu/
.edu/ • The PPatriot
atriot
libr
library
ary/inde
/index.php?id=973825)
x.php?id=973825)
• A Brief Biogr
Biograph
aphyy — Visit the Poetry Foundation to learn
more about Browning's life and work.
HOW T
TO
O CITE
(https:/
(https://www
/www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-
.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-
browning) MLA
Nelson, Kristin. "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's
• Browning's LLegacy
egacy — Read an article exploring how
Church." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 3 Nov 2021. Web. 15 Nov 2021.
Browning's poetic reputation has changed since his death.
(https:/
(https://blog.oup.com/2012/12/robert-browning-
/blog.oup.com/2012/12/robert-browning- CHICAGO MANUAL
bicentenary-2012/)
Nelson, Kristin. "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's
LITCHARTS ON OTHER ROBERT BROWNING Church." LitCharts LLC, November 3, 2021. Retrieved November
POEMS 15, 2021. https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/robert-browning/the-
bishop-orders-his-tomb-at-saint-praxed-s-church.
• Home-Thoughts, from Abroad
• How the
theyy Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix
• Life in a LLo
ove
• Meeting at Night

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